Persona eXtra: Violet Poppy Rebirth
by Anti-Mattering
Summary: A delinquent girl, another world, and a town that's not quite right. A side story in the world of Persona. 17-year-old troublemaker Mana Tatsugami is sent to live with a family friend in the small town of Nagaka. The next year of her life will be her last chance to turn things around, but she'll quickly learn there's more than just behaving at school to worry about.
1. Welcome to Nagaka

_Mana arrives in Nagaka and makes an important discovery about herself._

* * *

Life is such a pain. That (plus several expletives) was what she was thinking right now. As the train pulled into the station – the only one in the entire town – she seriously considered just staying on in the hopes they'd take her back to Sapporo.

As tempting as that idea was, though, actually going through with it would have just made a lot of problems that she didn't particularly want to deal with. Taking the path of least resistance, she stepped from the train and pulled out her orange smartphone.

Bringing up a list of directions, she quickly closed the window after taking notice of just how tiny this place was. Could this even qualify as a town? It was barely the size of a village. Even just a cursory glance at the buildings showed her this would probably be the closest to "roughing it" she'd experienced so far in life. No malls or department stores or arcades or movie theaters; just boring nonsense and at least one ramen stand.

Navigating this place (she should probably start using its name, "Nagaka") was at least easy given how few crowds and even fewer roads there were. Just follow the paths and you'd be fine. Screw up and all you had to do was retrace your steps. While that would be a positive for most people, she just looked at it with contempt while missing the sprawling layout of her home city.

It barely took any time at all to find the place she was meant to stay. An unassuming house next to several other unassuming houses. Walking up to the gate, she pressed a button, saying, "Let me in. I'm supposed to live here now."

Though there wasn't any response from the other side, the gate did in fact unlock. She pushed forward, finding the door similarly unlocked as she went inside. Kicking off her white sneakers and leaving them in a pile at the entryway, she was immediately annoyed by the lack of any slippers or other footwear to put on. Did this guy expect her to just walk around in socks in a place this cold?

Stomping through the house, she eventually found her host in the kitchen with a seemingly cold piece of pizza hanging from his mouth, the crust end drooping onto a plate as he gave her a timid wave. It was quite obvious he was looking her over to try and assess if all the warnings he'd been given were true, so she decided to return the favor. Frankly, she wasn't impressed. Just some pudgy guy with glasses and a green sweater (and slippers).

Biting off the end of the slice in his mouth, he finally gave a proper introduction. "Hey. Yeah, I'm, uh, the guy. Takuya. Ueno." He cleared his throat. "You can call me Takuya if you want. Or Ueno. Or Mr. Ueno. Old man. I'm not too picky."

It was clear that her presence here was making him greatly uncomfortable. "Like you know, you can stay here. Your room's upstairs, so make yourself at home. Put your stuff wherever you want." He coughed, adding. "Uh, there's some more pizza in the fridge if you get hungry."

Several seconds of silence passed between them after that before Ueno just walked away to somewhere else in the house. While this situation still sucked, it seemed unlikely he'd bother her while she was forced to be here. If he could just do that, the next year might at least be bearable.

Exiting the kitchen, she walked down the hall, passing a toilet, a den, a laundry room, and a dust-covered dining room before making it to the stairs. Ascending, she found her room at the end of the hall past two more bedrooms (one presumably belonging to Ueno) and the bathroom.

Her host had at least been considerate enough to make sure there were clean sheets and less than an inch of dust on the dresser. No cobwebs, either. Dropping her suitcase and backpack, she flopped into her new bed, turning over to look at the white ceiling.

It would be a few days before school started, so she was in no hurry to unpack. Doing as any teenager would, she took her phone out of her dark jeans and began idly messing around on the internet. Nothing in particular, just flipping between different sites and programs as she tried to find something to occupy her time. Most of her friends had stopped talking to her after the incident at the gym and the few that were left hadn't replied to any of her messages yet.

Growing bored, she set her phone down on the table next to her bed and opened the window above it. Cold air filled the room as she took a rectangular pack of cigarettes from inside of her jacket. Popping one between her lips, she lit the end and inhaled. She'd resolved to try and ration them on the train ride over since there was no guarantee of when she could find a way to get more.

Ashing out the window, she spun her phone on the table while thinking of everything that led her to this moment. One too many classes skipped, one too many beers, and an asshole in the hospital was what it finally took for her school to expel her. While that wouldn't have been a bad thing since she hated school, having charges against her was less than ideal. Whatever magic her parents managed to work to set up this deal was beyond her, but now she'd be stuck in Musou High School instead of a cell.

As if on queue, her phone began to ring. It was her parents, of course, so she ignored it. Some part of her knew she shouldn't be acting this way, especially with how much they'd done for her and all the trouble she'd brought to them over the years, but her bad nature prevailed and led her to simply blame them for seemingly forcing her to come all the way out here.

Snuffing out the last of her cigarette on the windowsill and brushing away the ashes, she pulled off her jacket and slung it over one of the posts at the foot of her bed. Doing a quick spot check to make sure it was still in good conditions, patches and pins stuck in their normal places, she headed back downstairs to find some food.

From the sounds of the television playing in the background, that seemed to be where Ueno had hidden. Ignoring the opportunity for conversation with the antisocial hermit, she made her way to the kitchen to search the fridge. Just as he'd said, there was some pizza and literally nothing else save for a few condiment packets from a fast food restaurant.

With no other option, she took two slices of the black olive, pepperoni, and mushroom monstrosity and tossed them onto a paper plate to warm up in the microwave. It didn't taste very good even after picking off the olives, but given her distinct lack of options, she'd have to endure it until this guy got some more food. She'd normally just leave the house to find something to eat on her own, but the supremely long train ride had tired her out.

Scarfing it all down, she headed back up the stairs to get ready for bed. Given how tired she felt, she planned to turn in early for a change. Shutting the window, she stripped out of her normal attire and into a black sweatshirt and some rad as hell blue dinosaur bottoms. Being even further north, keeping her socks on was a given.

She set her earrings down on the table above her phone, arranging the pair of skulls so they overlooked it for no other reason than aesthetics. Brushing her teeth or taking a bath were pushed off until tomorrow as she slid under the covers, pulling a surprisingly comfortable quilt up to her neck and settling in.

It was only about 8:00 PM, but that certainly never stopped her from falling asleep before. Being able to pass out almost on command was one of her few real talents, in fact. Barely a minute after she closed her eyes, she'd already drifted into sleep, snoring loudly and tossing and turning until cocooned in her bedding.

It was exceedingly unusual for her to have dreams at night, making the scene unfolding before her all the more strange. Seemingly awoken within the dream itself, she found herself in a lavish blue bed surrounded by similarly colored curtains and carpet.

Pulling them back, she found herself face to face with some sort of troll in a black suit sitting on a couch on the other side of the room. If his wide smile was any indication, her panicked expression seemed to be quite amusing. Seemingly trying to diffuse the tension, the man introduced himself.

"Welcome to the Velvet Room," he began. "My name is Igor. It's a pleasure to see you once again." This struck her as odd. Well, the whole situation currently unfolding in front of her was odd, but the implication that they'd met before was what stuck out to her the most.

"This is my assistant, Alphonse." He gestured to a corner of the room where a young man dressed in a black and blue ensemble (she was beginning to notice a theme) stood, arms folded behind his back and chin up, no response at the mention of his name.

"We inhabit a space between dream and reality. As you can likely imagine, not just anyone is allowed to enter here. Only those who have signed a contract may take respite." Igor could tell she was about to object, claim that she hadn't signed anything with him. With a small flourish of his hand, a booklet sat atop a nightstand beside the bed flipped open.

Inside was, just as he'd said, some sort of contract. Mana Tatsugami was written on the signature line, unmistakably her name in her handwriting. She had no memory of ever putting pen to paper, though. "I foresee many challenges ahead of you in the future," he said ominously. "In order to face them, you will need to take full advantage of the services offered here. I shall help you, but in exchange, I ask that you abide by the terms of the contract and take full responsibility for your own actions."

"I don't understand," she finally said.

Igor chuckled, promising, "Everything will become clear soon enough. For now, rest. I look forward to our next meeting." As he said this, Mana's vision began to blur as she fell back onto the bed, sinking both literally and metaphorically into slumber.

She awoke the next morning, sun streaming into her room through a small gap in the curtains. Unrolling herself from her twisted mess of blankets, her hand fought its way to freedom and checked the time on her phone. From the looks of things, she'd been asleep for a full fourteen hours. While she might normally feel refreshed, she couldn't help but linger on that bizarre dream.

After taking a much needed bath and tending to other hygiene matters, Mana dressed herself to truly begin the day. Black jeans, orange tights under those to keep her warm in spite of the fashionably necessary holes in her pants, and a black and white striped t-shirt. She slipped an orange wristband onto her left wrist and put her skull studs back in her ears, slinging her jacket over her shoulders as she headed downstairs.

"Good morning," Ueno greeted from the den. She said nothing in return, though it had less to do with rudeness and more to do with trying to get the huge mess of black hair sitting on her head under control. It was a wonder she hadn't given in and cut it short yet. "If you're hungry, I'll order some food," he said. "I ate the last of the pizza."

This got her attention. "Just get groceries," she sighed, hoping to avoid having to eat pizza every day for a year. True, it wouldn't be the worst fate imaginable, but if all of them had olives, she was going to put a stop to that nonsense right now.

Ueno laughed nervously, waving his hand back and forth. "No, they don't deliver. There's a Chinese place not that far if you'd like that better."

Astounded at the depths of his laziness, she rolled her eyes. "I'll get something by myself," she told him while heading for the door.

"Oh, uh, wait a second," he said. "I'm supposed to remind you to stay out of trouble. Your parents wanted me to, at least. Since it's like your last chance and all. So just don't go making a fool of yourself, or anything. Go to school and earn a good reputation around here, I guess, and you'll be able to graduate. You got all that?"

"Whatever," she said dismissively. Without another word, she left out the front door, hopping the gate on her way out to explore the town. Though she made it a point to never do anything someone commanded her to do, she would have to try her best to keep from attracting attention while she was here. She could go back to doing whatever she wanted once she was free from high school.

Her first stop that morning was the ramen stand near the station. A hot bowl of soup in all this cold would be pretty nice, plus she hadn't had any in a while and wanted to see what the food scene around here was like. To her relief, the elderly chef managed to serve her a perfectly respectable dish of miso ramen. Not quite as good as the real deal from the restaurants in the city, but she certainly wouldn't complain.

With that out of the way, she had absolutely no idea what else she was going to do that day. Buying some actual groceries seemed to be a high priority, but that still left a good 10 hours at the least before bed. What was there to do in this armpit of a town?

Maybe she could at least find a vending machine for beer or cigarettes. This didn't seem like the kind of place that would have upgraded to the kind that need ID. It wouldn't really solve her problem of having nothing to do, but it certainly wouldn't hurt.

She'd made it to what she could only describe as the "entertainment district" of the town consisting of thrift store, a fast food burger restaurant, a bookstore, a laser tag arena, and a damn video rental place. It looked like there might be a karaoke bar nestled in there somewhere, too, but the size of the lot meant there couldn't be more than two or three rooms at the most. Truly, this was the liveliest spot in all of Nagaka.

Things quickly became far less dull but exponentially more annoying after that. "Good evening," a voice said from off to the side despite the fact it was quite obviously not evening yet. As one would expect, it was a guy her age coming to talk to her.

"Never seen you before," he continued. "You new in town?" He ran his fingers through his cropped red hair, flashing a smile and trying painfully hard to be charming. This facade quickly fell away, though, after he got a better look at her. "Whoa, you're cool! All that stuff on your jacket is just...wow!"

He circled around her, pointing out her various accessories in different states of amazement. "I don't know why, but that one's really cool! Like, the way the gold infinity symbol's on your back and your shoulder like that, but it's just kind of askew like you don't care. And I really like the way you've got those golden pins at your wrists like they're cuff links, or something. Hearts? Badass! Yo, and those red double zeroes on your right arm! Are you part of some sports team?"

"What do you want?" she finally asked, growing more exasperated with the scene he was making by the second.

He shrugged, placing his hands into his crimson jacket. "Just never seen you before. Figured you might want to a friend. You are really cool, though. I'm not just saying- holy crap, your eyes!"

Honestly, she was surprised more people hadn't brought that up since she came to town. To make a long and hazy story short, her left eye had turned a dull yellow when she was around eight years of age, her right remaining its normal dark brown. No one was entirely sure how or why it happened – not herself, her parents, any doctors – but it didn't seem to impact her vision or cause her discomfort, so it was never much of an issue.

"Can you stop yelling?" Mana groaned, hoping to continue her search for a place to buy alcohol as soon as possible. She definitely needed it now.

"Sorry," he said with a laugh. "I just get excited about stuff. Oh, name's Sotaro, by the way. Sotaro Nogami."

"Fascinating." Without another word, she began to make her exit.

"Aren't you going to introduce yourself?" he asked, following behind her and most definitely not taking the hint. Being met with silence, he figured this new girl must be having a bad day. "Want to see something cool?" he said suddenly, pulling a silver yo-yo from his pocket.

Though she didn't initially pay him any mind, she instinctively flipped around to face him as the toy came whizzing by her head. "That got your attention," he said, smiling innocently.

"You want to die?" Her expression was anything but joking, yet Sotaro didn't seem bothered by it. He just kept on yoing, commanding the toy like some kind of magician as he rocked the cradle, walked the dog, and a smattering of other tricks that did not impress Mana in the slightest.

She huffed loudly, walking away as quickly as she could. Any other day and this guy would already be on the ground, but she was supposed to behave herself here. What a pain in the ass. "Hey, did I upset you?" he asked, completely oblivious. "I'm sorry."

"Then leave me alone!" she finally yelled, marching off down the road.

"Yeah, of course! I didn't mean to upset you. Sorry."

"Then why are you still following me?"

"I'm sorry! We're holding this conversation and I'm trying to stop, but if I don't keep up you won't hear me apologizing and we can't end this properly!"

"There is no conversation, so just piss off!" As he continued to apologize, they both rounded a corner. While it wasn't immediately apparent what had happened, both of them could feel that something was off. Abruptly, they stopped bickering to look around. "Where did we just go?"

"I'm...not sure," he replied. Sotaro scratched his head, looking up at the black, twisting architecture that had somehow overtaken this segment of the town. "I've lived here my whole life, but I don't remember anything like this. Did they do some construction recently that I just didn't notice?"

Thinking logically, they tried to turn around and retrace their steps but were met with a wall easily thirty feet in height where the opening to the alley had been. Mana grabbed him by the collar instinctively, figuring this was some kind of trick. "What did you do?"

"Nothing, I swear! I really don't know what's happening!" The truth shone through in those hazel eyes of his, so she released him. He was far too earnest and foolish to lie, let alone plan something this elaborate in such a short amount of time.

With a sigh, Mana began to walk. "Wait up!" Sotaro called, running behind her. "Do you know where we're going?"

"I got here yesterday," she told him, frustration evident in her voice. "I don't even know the layout of the normal town. What makes you think I know anything about this disaster?"

"Good point," he said with a nod. "Guess we can just follow the path until we make it to the end." The path in question was an assortment of cobblestones of varying size, further muddling as to where they were supposed to be. As the road opened up, the harsh violet sky became visible above them, black clouds and a golden crescent moon hanging above them.

"That's not normal," Sotaro pointed out, though that was obvious even to the person who had literally just arrived in Nagaka. "You don't think we're, like...dead, right? Like, just hypothetically, this could totally be Hell. We don't know what the afterlife is like. Maybe it's weird twisty buildings and creepy red skies."

While she rolled her eyes at the assertion, Mana couldn't conclusively rule out that possibility. The only thing she knew for certain was that she really needed a smoke, lighting up as they headed down the leftmost of a series of five branching paths.

"Are you old enough to be doing that?" Sotaro asked. She glared at him, blowing smoke out her nostrils. "Alright, alright." To her enjoyment, he moved a few feet away from her to be out of the smoke cloud.

The longer they stayed in this place, the more unsettling it became. If the impossible architecture and unnatural skyline weren't weird enough, they both swore they could feel people watching them from the windows of the different buildings they passed. Well, maybe not people per se, but something had its eyes on them.

The road they traveled eventually opened up into a large square, a long silver pole extending out of the middle with a rounded clock at the top. Neither hand appeared to be moving, the time perpetually stuck at 11:00.

Unable to stand it any longer, Sotaro pulled his hair and let out a loud groan. "Damn it, just do something already! It's so much worse when nothing happens! Just get whatever's going to happen over with!" His foolish request would soon be granted, shuffling feet coming from another of the paths that led to where they'd found themselves.

They both looked on in a mixture of fear and confusion as writhing mass of black slime stumbled out of the shadows. Its body was vaguely humanoid in shape if a bit top heavy, the outlines of several faces screaming in agony visibly moving underneath its torso. Even worse, though, was that the area where its own face would be was entirely blank save for two piercing red dots as stand ins for eyes. Eyes that were now decidedly focused on the two of them.

Slowly, the creature began shambling towards them. As if on instinct, Sotaro walked forward to put himself between it and Mana. "I think we need to get out of here," he said, coaxing her to back away with him. She wasn't responding, though, simply standing in place to gawk at the beast as it approached.

Suddenly, Mana's left eye began to pulse with a burning pain. Clutching the side of her face, she grit her teeth to try and keep from screaming and fell to her knees. It was worse than any migraine she'd ever experienced, as bad as what she imagined having her eye scooped out with a spoon would feel like.

With the pain came a glow, its normal yellow coloration turning a brilliant gold. Another wave of pain hit, finally forcing out a yell. The moment she did, a voice rang out in her head. "Did you forget our contract?" it asked, sounding uncannily similar to herself yet at the same time much colder and more resentful, even by her standards. "You were granted a second chance," it continued. "Do you intend to squander it?"

At first, she had no idea what this voice was trying to tell her. Almost immediately, though, she remembered. It was like a firework going off inside her brain, repressed memories flooding back to her. Igor's words, too, were recalled. Though she still couldn't recall their previous meeting, she was now more certain than ever that they had seen each other before.

That last point sent another jolt coursing through her head. The contract on the table that she'd signed finally began to make sense. She now fully understood what the voice meant. Slowly, she stood up. "No," she replied, moving her hand away from her eye. "I'll live. Just like last time."

"Then show the world who you truly are," the voice commanded. "I am thou, thou art I… Draw your sword and enter the battlefield! Cut down all those who try to oppose you!"

Sotaro's eyes darted between Mana and the monster before them. Whatever was happening to her, she was in no condition to run. Why he was prepared to risk his life for a girl he'd just met who he, frankly, didn't even really like was a mystery, but it felt like the right thing to do. "Just stay behind me," he said. "It's going to be alright."

"Get out of my way," she ordered, pushing past him. He tried to call out to her and pull her back, but it was too late. The beast was already on the attack. A clawed hand flew through the air, set to cleave the both of them into pieces.

Before it even had time to register what had happened, though, its hand lay on the ground beside its targets. Letting out a screech, it jumped backwards, a long, translucent silver _jian_ sword held aloft in the air by some unseen force. Blue flames began to erupt from the side of Mana's face, spreading through the sky to meet with the weapon. From out of the fire emerged a towering woman clothed in extravagant red and gold robes, several battle flags attached to her back. A feathered bronze helmet sat on her head, the face of a dragon etched just above her brow. Opening her red-shadowed eyes, she swung the sword around to bench on her shoulder.

Extending her arm forward, Mana prepared for a counterattack. "Show them what happens when they try to stand in my way, Mu Guiying!"

* * *

Really tapping into that word salad English titling here. Not sure if Persona would actually do that if they did a full spinoff game like this with a wholly original story, but it seemed like fun when I was hitting the random page button on dictionary websites for five hours. Same goes for the X in the title, but I guess that'd be more 2edgy4u. We know that's allowed in Persona since 3 exists.

I say all that, but the title is mostly just basic flower symbolism smashed together. Like, fullest disclosure, it was way more nonsensical at the start, but it transformed into this later on. Almost like the story itself is following one of its own major themes, but we can't talk about that until we're at least a few chapters in.

You're probably already picking up a bit on how the big idea for this story is sort of, "What if Joker was actually kind of a bastard?" No doubt that's going to turn some people off because of the idea that characters need to be likable (not true), but I've always found extremely flawed protagonists who aren't necessarily even good people but still end up on the side of justice for personal reasons to be some of the most interesting. Probably why I like Giorno and the nasty crime boys as much as I do.

If you pay attention, I plan to drop the name of the Arcana for each of the potential Social Link within the first paragraph they're introduced in some way. For example, chapter 1 here introduces us to the Hermit, the Fool, and the Magician in that order. Might be less obvious going forward, but I felt like mentioning it.

Since this is Persona, the question of music is probably going to come up at some point. I'm tempted to say it's the Seikou Nagaoka/DJ Kawasaki set of my dreams, but that doesn't really match the feel of the story and I envisioned that for my take on what a real Persona 6 would be like (contact me anytime, Sega representatives). I'm not super sure what would go with this since I'm no Shoji Meguro, but I'm pretty open to suggestions. Maybe something that blends lofi with traditional Japanese instruments to represent the duel nature of our protagonist from the city and her more direct and in-your-face attitude juxtaposed with the fairly traditional and quiet small town? Either way, Lotus Juice is still there.

Kind of like the idea of Daichi Miura's Blizzard as the opening for some reason.

As this is prose and not a video game, it'd be kind of difficult to add the interactivity of the actual Persona, but I am intending to try and emulate that to a degree here. I guess you could say that's just being a good author and changing things based on audience reaction, but I'm talking a bit more directly in that I might try and incorporate suggestions as to what Mana should do with regards to story elements or other characters. Sort like it's Twitch Plays Persona only much worse. That's assuming anyone reads or comments on this.

This is getting to be pretty long, so I'll stop myself here. We're breaking some conventions this time around with a protagonist who's autistic in a flavor that's not mostly nonverbal, going off brand with the types of Personas showing up, and a lot more as you'll see in coming chapters. Hopefully you stick around. Thanks for reading. Tell your friends if you enjoyed since gaining traction is about to get a whole lot harder in about a week. Always remember to do some sick yo yo tricks to impress girls.


	2. Self-Discovery

_Surviving their first encounter in another world, Mana and Sotaro share what little information they have to try and make sense of things._

* * *

The monster, previously so confident in its victory, took a long and presumably confused look at the stump where its hand had been. With what sounded like a groan, its body began to bubble and pulse before completely melting away. In its place was a black horse creature with two sharp, green horns. It whinnied loudly, stomping the ground to prepare for another attack instead of the more logical route of retreating.

Sotaro, literally floored in awe of what he was seeing in front of him, watched as the spirit Mana had created launched itself forward. The horse began to charge, as well, intending to ram its enemies with its horns. It would never get the chance, though, as a single slash from Mu Guiying's blade severed its head from its shoulders.

As both halves of the creature fell to the ground, they disintegrated into a black mist, leaving no trace behind as it dissipated. At the same time, Mu Guiying also began to disappear, Mana standing motionless near the center of the square.

"How the hell did you do that?" he asked her, scrambling up off the ground and walking over to her. As he approached, though, he could already tell something was wrong. Her breathing had become labored and she could barely stand.

Before he could ask her what was happening, she's already collapsed into his arms. Weakly, she pointed towards one of the buildings across from them. "Is it another one?" he asked, preparing to sling her over his shoulder and run if need be.

"Way out," she groaned, visibly annoyed by his misinterpretation. Nodding, Sotaro pulled one of her arms over his neck and walked with her towards the building. With a bit of hesitance, he reached out and turned the knob.

At the very least, it was unlocked. That might be a good sign. Pulling towards them, the door was opened. He couldn't quite make out was on the other side but headed in regardless. Without any warning, they found themselves emerging from behind a wall next to a convenience store back in the real world.

"How did you know that would happen?" he asked. "Wait, forget that. Are you okay? What's wrong?" She shook her head, quietly mumbling Ueno's address with a request to take her home. Unsure of what else to do, he complied, staying out of sight as best as he could to avoid questions or weird looks from onlookers.

She'd already passed out before they even made it to the house, waking up several hours later around sunset. Shaking off the haze of sleep, the first thing she noticed was that she'd been put in bed (fully clothed, thankfully). The second was Sotaro sitting in a chair in the corner of a room eating a slice of pizza.

"Good, you're awake," he said. "Got pretty worried there for-"

"Why are you in my room?" she asked, feeling around on herself for something to throw at him.

"Wait, I'm not doing anything weird! I just wanted to make sure you were okay." He laughed nervously, adding, "You know, for my own safety more than anything. As far as anyone knows, I'm the last person you were with. I walk out of here and a couple days later they're taking me away in cuffs since it looks like I did something and now you won't wake up."

That reasoning was sound enough, though she still wasn't too pleased to know he was watching her sleep. "Oh, yeah. That guy you're living with ordered some pizza if you're hungry. I can go get you some."

She shook her head, running her hands through her hair with a sigh. "You're probably pretty tired, so I'm just going to go. Sorry for all the trouble."

As he got up to leave, he heard her say, "Thank you," from behind him. Looking back over his shoulder, he slowly turned back around. "You got me back here safe. Didn't try anything while I was asleep, either. You didn't, did you?"

"Hell no! I'm a lady's man for sure, but I'd just be a creep if I did that." It was obvious he wasn't lying about that, so she gestured for him to sit back down.

"Tell me everything you know about that place we went to," she said, her expression softening a bit from the scowl she normally wore.

"Like I said before, I really don't know anything. That's the first time anything like that has happened to me before. I've even been down that alleyway a few times in the past."

"That makes no sense," she said. "How do you just walk into a different town full of monsters like that?" She paused for a moment before asking, "Did you tell that guy about what happened?"

Sotaro shook his head. "Nah, your guardian doesn't know anything. I just said I met you on the street and you were acting weird, so I helped you home. Really hope he doesn't think you're on drugs now, or something."

"It doesn't matter." Mana took a moment to think over all she knew of the situation, considering whether she was willing to share and how much. Ultimately, she felt she owed Sotaro something for helping her, and an explanation was the least she could provide.

"Persona," she said, his ears perking up. "That's what I used back there. It's called a Persona."

"Where'd it come from?" he asked almost immediately.

"I don't really know, but...it feels like it's been a part of me for a while. Like..." A flash of knowledge suddenly hit her. "Shit, that's it."

"What?"

"I just remembered. I got my Persona the day I died." His look of shock and horror probably meant that needed some explaining. "Like, I don't really know the conditions or the process, but...a while back when I was a kid, I ended up dead. But I guess didn't die, and I think it had something to do with my Persona."

"So does that make you a zombie, or something?"

"No," she scoffed, though she couldn't exactly dismiss that possibility out of hand. "It was some kind of agreement or...a contract." Things were slowly beginning to fall into place. "For some reason, I was able to go back to living. A second chance, I guess. And even though I never realized it before now, I've had this Persona inside of me."

"Damn." Sotaro tried to choose his next words tactfully. "Hey, do you mind if I ask you about how you got it?" She didn't seem to understand, so he continued. "You know. About how...you died, and all. If you don't want to talk about it, that's fine. I don't want to get too personal, or anything."

She considered it for a moment, deciding to indulge his curiosity in the event talking about it helped her remember anything else important she might have forgotten or repressed. "I think I was about eight. Maybe nine. My family was living down south at the time – we've moved around some because of my dad's job – and we ended up in a place that didn't really seem to like foreigners all that much."

Sotaro nodded, feeling some obvious kinship given his Latin heritage and dark skin. "I'm half Chinese, and some of the other kids were pretty shitty about it. And one day while I was coming home from school, a bunch of them came up with sticks and started hitting me. I don't know why. Just assholes, I guess. But then I got pushed, and one of them happened to be holding a stick right where I was falling, and it stuck right through my eye."

He winced as she mimicked the action, giving a small chuckle to hide how much recalling all of this was really affecting her. Covering up her left eye with her hand, she continued. "It wasn't instant. I could feel it all happening. Weird thing is it didn't really hurt all that bad. I don't really remember what happened after that, but somehow I managed to pull that stick out of my head and just went home. As far as I can tell, I've been fine ever since."

"That's really horrible," he said. "I'm sorry you had to go through that."

She waved it off. "It doesn't matter," she lied. In truth, a lot of her current behavior stemmed from the prejudiced attitudes of those around her. They expected her to be troublesome, so she gave them what they expected. It was preferable to simply taking the abuse they dished out, in her mind anyway. At least now everyone knew not to mess with her.

"Now you know my life's story. Let's hear yours." She crossed her arms, hoping the mental image of a tapping foot came through even while she was laying in bed.

He scratched his chin, really having to consider what was interesting enough to talk about. "I mean, there's not much to say. I'm Sotaro. I grew up here all my life. Uh...I like yo-yos, I guess. Got a fish hook stuck in my cheek when I was, like, six while messing around. You can kind of still see the scar if you look hard." He laughed, scratching his head nervously. "Sorry, I don't really have much to say about myself. Life's kind of boring around here."

His expression suddenly grew a bit more dour. "Well, it was. Things have been changing recently." He laughed again, this one sounding quite a bit more forced. "You kind of picked a really bad time to come live here."

"What's been happening?" she asked.

"No one told you? Well, for the past year or so, people have just kind of been falling into comas all over. No one knows why it's happening. We've had at least a couple doctors from big cities come in to check people out, but no one knows why they're like this. And it just keeps happening to more and more people."

The conclusion seemed obvious. "So the place we went probably has something to do with those incidents."

"It might be kind of early to say for certain, but I'm with you on that one." Taking a glance out the window, he realized the sun was almost entirely set. "I should be heading home now. You're probably sick of me sticking around here, anyway." He gave a wave and began to leave. "I left my number on your table there if you need to talk about anything. No pressure, obviously. Just, like, I don't think there's many other people who would really follow a conversation like this."

"Hey," she said, getting up out of bed. "My name is Mana. You asked before and I didn't answer. You can still go, I just...didn't want to leave that hanging any longer." He smiled, nodding in acknowledgment before heading down the stairs and out the door.

A few minutes after Sotaro's exit, Mana left her room to snatch a few pieces of pizza from the kitchen, avoiding an awkward conversation with Ueno about what had happened. It wasn't until she'd gone back upstairs that she noticed the toppings. Pepperoni and mushrooms like before, just no black olives. He must have noticed she didn't like them.

That small act of kindness began to needle her, making her feel guilty for not even bothering to tell him she'd woken up. He likely knew already, what with Sotaro leaving just a minute ago, but it was still pretty shitty to sneak food without even so much as saying hello.

After inhaling the food (it was much better fresh), she made the decision to head back downstairs. Tossing her plate in the trash, she slowly stepped towards the den. Leaning against the doorway, she waited for Ueno to take notice before speaking. "I'm up."

Relieved, Ueno stood up from his chair to go see her. "That's a relief. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she said, rolling her eyes. "It was seriously nothing."

"It seemed kind of serious. That nice boy had to carry you home."

"It was nothing. Sometimes I just get kind of delirious when I haven't eaten. It's no big deal."

This only seemed to make it worse. "I'm sorry. I should have gotten food. This is my fault. I won't let it happen again." He walked past her and into the kitchen, Mana following behind. He reached up into a cabinet above the stove, pulling out a box of oatmeal packets. "I knew I had this. Okay, so we have these if we run out of pizza. Please don't go out again if you haven't had anything to eat. Just tell me if we run out of anything and I'll order us some more, okay?"

"It is seriously fine," she said with a groan. "It won't happen again. Just stop freaking out." It was clear he wasn't fully convinced. His skepticism wasn't entirely without warrant given she was a reckless teenager, but given all of this was a result of exhaustion instead of low blood sugar, it wasn't something to worry over.

"By the way, your parents called." They both grew quiet after he said that. After around a minute of silence, he finally said, "They'd really appreciate it if you called. They were worried."

"I'm really not up for that," she said. "Just tell them I'm fine, alright?"

Reluctantly, he agreed. "Okay, but...can you call them soon? They miss you."

"I'll think about it." Without another word, she went back up stairs to prepare for bed. Though she spent most of the day unconscious, it was far from restful. Besides, she'd have to be in school pretty soon, so completely ruining her sleep schedule would just make all of this even more annoying.

Unsurprisingly, falling asleep led her back to the Velvet Room, Igor's devilish smile greeting her as soon as she pulled back the curtain around the bed. "Welcome back," he said. "How may I be of service?"

"Explanation," she demanded.

Igor merely laughed. "I believe you have all the answers already."

Mana thought for a moment, talking to herself to sort out her thoughts. "Persona, those were Shadows of people's minds, we made a contract, that was a world of dreams, some bullshit about psychology..." She scratched her head, concluding, "I guess I kind of do. But how do I know all of that?"

"Through no fault of your own, these memories were repressed inside your mind until you were forced into a situation where you could no longer deny what you saw."

"Does that mean I've been there before? Summoned my Persona?"

He shook his head. "No. You had the potential since the day we formed a contract. You simply went about your life without realizing it until this point."

"That's kind of a load." She thought over what else she might need to ask, knowing she likely had only a limited amount of time to interact with Igor if their conversations took place while she was sleeping. "So why are we doing all of this now?" she finally said. "Why not years ago?"

"There are many others with similar abilities to your own," he explained. "Even so, only a select few may enter the Velvet Room. Until recently, there was no reason for you to visit us." She glared at him, feeling quite special after learning she was apparently an afterthought in this whole process.

With a laugh, Igor told her, "The fact that you're here now would mean things have changed. You understand that, correct?"

"What has?" she asked.

"I'm afraid the fate of the world may be at stake." Mana rolled her eyes at how dramatic that sounded, merely amusing Igor. "I do not exaggerate when I say that your actions over the course of this year could decide the ultimate fate of humanity."

"And if there's apparently a bunch of other Persona users out there, why pick me? I'm nobody."

"All will be explained in time," he said to dodge the question. "For now, know only that you will not be able to change the course of destiny alone. Cultivate your bonds with others to create new power. Fortunately for you, my attendant, Alphonse, will help you as needed in this endeavor." He raised a hand, gesturing towards the clearly annoyed man standing in the corner.

"So you're telling me to go be friends with people and somehow that's going to save the world?"

"That explanation is a bit simplistic, but not entirely incorrect."

With a sigh, she resigned herself to her fate. She'd just survived going into an alternate dream world filled with monsters after the spirit of a legendary Chinese warrior jumped out of her eye, so this might as well happen, too. "That's bullshit, but I believe it," she said simply. "Now, how the hell do I do that?"

"You will understand soon enough," he said cryptically, only succeeding in pissing her off even further with his vagueness. "Unfortunately, our time has come to an end. Return to your rest for now. Until we meet again."

* * *

Bicorns are a shit-tier enemy and aren't even worth a full fight scene. They barely even warrant assuming their true form.

Mana is starting to feel this weird emotion called guilt for treating other people with disdain. I wonder how that's going to play into her job of filling out the Social Link.

Igor can't stop making children. Alphonse is probably the surliest of them all, probably because he's about the last Frankenstein name left for a Velvet Room resident and it makes him feel like he got picked last in kickball.

Wonder if all that talk of people going to sleep forever will turn into anything. Could just be that Goro Akechi up to his old tricks again and switching gears from the psychotic break tactic.

Not much to say in such an exposition-heavy chapter, so that's about all we've got. Thanks for reading. Share with a friend if you're enjoying. Always remember to call your parents.


	3. Mistakes

_Mana and Sotaro foolishly return to the other world._

* * *

"Are you sure you're okay to go to school today?" Ueno asked Mana as she put on her shoes.

"I'm fine," she replied dryly, already heading out the door.

"Okay, but just don't push yourself." He opened up the door, standing at the very edge of the doorway and shouting, "And try to have some fun, too! Join a club, make friends!" She ignored this, obviously, exiting the yard and continuing on the journey to school.

It was an especially chilly spring morning in Nagaka, turning Mana's already bad mood worse as she cursed the fact she was required to wear a skirt. The only thing keeping her legs from freezing was a pair of black leggings underneath her blue plaid uniform skirt, though they offered minimal protection from the cutting wind.

She was just about ready to skip school entirely by the time she got there, the only thing stopping her from bolting that very moment being the sight of Sotaro entering the building. She'd never call them friends or anything like that, but he was currently the only person she could talk to about the other world.

Her desire to share what she'd learned talking with Igor trumped her urge to ditch, leading her into the building. After swapping shoes, she caught him talking to a pair of friends near the lockers. "Hey," she said, rudely interrupting their conversion about the new episode of Phoenix Ranger.

"Oh, uh, hey. Guys, this is Mana. She just moved here and is going to be attending school. I'm not sure if-"

"I've got stuff to tell you about that thing. Come with me."

"Okay, I guess I'm going over there now. I'll talk to you guys later." Sotaro was led over to a more secluded area near the bathrooms, standing out of range of echoing into them. "You know you've got my number, right? You could have just texted me this earlier."

"Kind of hard to make time for that when my guardian thinks I'm diabetic or something and kept forcing me to eat breakfast."

"He seems like a nice guy," Sotaro said. "Can you thank him for me? For the pizza, I mean. I think I did already, but I want to make sure."

"Just do it yourself. Quit getting off track already."

"Okay, then what did you want to tell me?"

"I had some..." She had to think on how best to explain she'd traveled to a room in a parallel dimension and met a troll in the simplest manner possible. "...revelations last night. That ghost thing I controlled back there is called a Persona, and the thing it killed is a Shadow. I'm still kind of not 100% on all the details, but I think we need to go back there."

"Go back?" he said, obviously astonished by the suggestion they willingly travel back to a nightmare. "Wait, 'we'?"

"Uh, yeah," she replied. "I think better when I can talk to somebody, so you're coming with me."

"Maybe you missed it last time, but there was a demon thing trying to rip us to pieces. And I don't have one of those Personas to defend myself with."

"Get a weapon," Mana told him plainly. "I'm bringing a shovel."

"A shov- what are you even saying now?" His normally friendly demeanor gave way to pure anxiety, realizing he had to accompany her just to make sure she doesn't immediately die due to the absolute magnitude of her unwarranted bravery. "All I wanted was to say hi to somebody," he lamented.

"What are you complaining about? You've got a good weapon already." She pointed to the yo yo bulging from his school jacket pocket. "You're pretty good with that thing, right? Just swing it around and hit people with it."

"You think I'm good with my yo yo?" he said, quickly snapping back to the main issue. "That's beside the point. I really don't think a yo yo is going to stop a huge monster."

"It's a last resort," she said, sighing indignantly. "Mu Guiying is strong enough to deal with anything. Killed that last Shadow in one hit, remember? You'll be fine."

With a groan, Sotaro resigned himself to his fate. "I guess I have no choice. We'll talk about this after school, though. You should probably head to the faculty room. Your homeroom teacher probably wants to talk to you."

"Right. I'll text you later. Don't flake on me."

"I won't, relax. Cool guys always keep their word, that's why they're so cool."

"You see any of those around here, or something? I don't get it."

"No need to crush my self esteem like that." He said goodbye to her once more before heading off to continue chatting with his friends, Mana walking to the faculty office on the third floor like he'd suggested.

Once there, she banged on the door until someone opened it. A larger older man in a red bow tie and inexplicable white gloves opened the door, his frustration at her loud knocking growing at the sight of her wearing her own jacket as opposed to the school blazer. "I assume you're the new student," he said, contempt evident in his voice.

Mana simply nodded, remaining fairly indifferent to the old man's annoyance. "I'm your homeroom teacher, Mr. Morikawa. Listen and listen good, you. I know about why you're here and, frankly, I have no idea why we'd accept a delinquent like you. I've got my eye on you, so if you slip up even once, I'm sending you straight to the principal. Did you understand all that or should I write it down so you don't forget?"

"Yep," she said flippantly.

Gritting his teeth, Morikawa adjusted his glasses. "Alright, then. Class starts in ten minutes. Stand in the hall until I introduce you to the class. It's room 3-B."

Mana spent the remaining time sitting outside the classroom texting and playing on her phone, bugging Sotaro to not forget their meetup after school. Classes began to commence not long after, Morikawa entering the room and doing the usual pre-class things before speeding through the announcement and calling her inside.

Quickly writing out her name (screeching the chalk against the blackboard just to be an asshole), she took a seat near the back of the class close to the middle. She felt a bit less watched from that position since it would be harder for him to see her when standing in the front.

No one currently occupied the window seat to her left – something she was happy about – but the same couldn't be said to her right. A starry-eyed girl with blonde hair was looking intently at her with a smile, giving her a small wave as class began. Naturally, Mana ignored her (to be an asshole). At least the dark haired kid drawing moons in a notebook in front of her was quiet enough.

Class droned on for far longer than she would have liked. By the time lunch finally rolled around, she was ready to get out of there. She texted Sotaro as she started to leave the classroom, her path suddenly blocked by the girl from before.

"Hi, Tatsugami-san!" she said, Mana's eyes darting every which way to try and find an opening to get past her. "I'm the student council president, Hoshiko Minamoto, but you can just call me Hoshiko-chan like everyone else. I just wanted to get the chance to introduce myself and see how things are since you moved here."

"Fine," she lied, trying to inch around her only to once again be stopped as Hoshiko stepped back in front of her. "Kind of trying to go somewhere right now."

"Oh, sorry! Well, if you need me, our seats are right next to each other, and you can usually find me in the student council room when I'm not in class. If you need anything, don't be afraid to ask! I can always make time to listen to a classmate."

"Yeah, great, okay. Got someplace to be."

"Sure! Just remember to make it back to class before lunch ends. See you soon!" Hoshiko finally relented and moved from the door frame (how a girl that skinny could have such a large presence was beyond comprehension), letting Mana into the hall.

Flinging open the door to class 3-A, Mana stomped up and grabbed Sotaro by the collar. "I'm eating lunch!" he yelled as he was dragged into the hall, the friends he was sat with all too perplexed to do anything about what just happened.

"I texted you that we're going early," she said, making her way to the stairs.

"But why? I had leftover meatballs for lunch!"

"Mostly because I can't stand another second in this place without losing my mind."

Though he continued following her out the doors to the school, Sotaro was beginning to get fed up with her erratic and rude behavior. "You're not very nice, you know."

"Then don't come. Forget what I said before. I can do this by myself."

"I already said I'm not backing out, so let's just go. Are we heading back to where we were before?"

"That's what I was thinking," she said, looking around to get her bearings before continuing down the street. "You're sure nothing like that ever happened before? You've never seen that place before?"

"Not unless I just forgot." He turned Mana to the right as she tried taking the wrong path, desperately wanting to avoid getting lost and causing this to take even longer than necessary. They still had half a day of school left after this, too.

The town was thankfully small enough that making the trip over to this alleyway only took a few minutes. Without even a second of apprehension, Mana walked forward into the gap. "Wait, what happened?" she said, looking around to find normal bricks and a blue sky above. "Why am I still here?"

"Did we break it?" Sotaro asked, walking up beside her without seeming to slip into the other world.

"How would we break it?" she said.

"I don't know, I'm just throwing out ideas." Scratching his head, Sotaro looked back and forth down the alley. "Okay, so...I'm just thinking, but...what if when you killed that Shadow thing, you also got rid of this way into that place?" Mana quirked an eyebrow. "Like, think about it. That can't be normal, so what if those Shadows are what causes stuff to just...like, lead into that place? They're probably causing the comas, so maybe they can cause stuff like that, too."

"That's..." She thought for a second. "...actually not a bad theory. So if we're going to get back in that place, we'll have to find somewhere else."

"Any idea where that might be?" he asked.

"Nope." They set off again with absolutely no direction, wandering the streets looking for any kind of entrance to that world. Their search turned up little, though, as nowhere they tried sent them back into that place.

Leaning against the wall of a convenience store, the two were ready to give up. "It's hopeless," Sotaro said. "We're never going to find an entrance. Come on, let's just go back to school. Lunch is almost over and I need to make sure those guys didn't eat the rest of my meatballs."

"Fine," she relented, resolving to continue the search once school ended for the day. "I guess just walking around probably won't get us far, anyway." As fate would have it, that wasn't entirely correct. The two made their exit by walking by a dented postbox, suddenly realizing the sky had changed color and the buildings had grown immensely in size.

"I don't believe it," Sotaro said with a shake of his head. "Really? We just had to give up?"

"At least we found our way in," Mana reminded him. "And we're probably not getting out until we find the Shadow causing this entrance and kill it. Not much time before class starts again, so we'd better hurry."

"Speedrun strats, got it." The two set about searching this new area of the place for signs of a disturbance. While the scenery remained mostly the same as last time, there was a distinctly greater number of seemingly innocuous postboxes dotted around the sidewalk.

"You think the layout changes depending on where we go in?" Mana asked, picking up on the slight differences in the environment.

"Maybe," he agreed. "Kind of hard to tell for sure when we've only been here twice. Could just be a different area." That question would seem to be answered shortly after, though, as they made their way to a square similar to the one from before only with another postbox at the center, the clock from before jutting out of the top.

From down one of the branching paths from the square, a pair of Shadows emerged. Rather than try to attack in their amorphous forms, the two immediately began to shake upon seeing the two humans. The inky mass fell away to reveal a threatening warrior in red armor riding a horse and a large owl man.

"Guess they're not playing around this time," Sotaro said, drawing his yo yo for whatever good that would do him.

"Fine by me," Mana replied, her left eye glowing as Mu Guiying appeared behind her. "Just means this'll be over quicker."

Without so much as a warning, the Shadows attacked. The warrior began to charge forward with its spear extended, aiming to skewer Mana and trample Sotaro at once. Though she raised her sword to counter it, she'd neglected to account for the fact that the other enemy wouldn't simply stand around waiting for a turn.

Because of this carelessness, the owl was able to send several shards of ice flying towards the two. "Look out!" Sotaro shouted, swinging his yo yo like a tiny flail and actually managing to smash two of the crystals to avoid damage. Mana, however, was caught off guard and took one right in the shoulder.

Despite the damage, this actually worked in her favor. The impact knocked her from her feet just in time to move her out of the way of the knight's strike. Mu Guiying followed its master dutifully, also avoiding the attack and saving the two from further injury.

This left Sotaro in quite a precarious place, though. On his right was the owl, already preparing another blast of ice. On his left and quite a bit closer was the warrior, spear already cocked back. As the weapon came barreling towards him, Sotaro froze in fear. Foolish, he knew, but what could one do when faced with almost certain death like this?

Time seemed to move in slow motion, the blade moving closer and closer towards him. He kept telling his body to move, but it wouldn't listen. His legs remained firmly rooted to the ground, his body refusing to dodge or duck, and his arms entirely useless to even block.

His only hope was Mana. She promised to protect him, right? In between the legs of the Shadow's steed, he could see her getting to her feet. It was too late, though, and she realized that with a single look. Their eyes met just as the point of the spear entered his stomach.

* * *

That didn't go as planned.

It's really funny to me thinking how Sotaro is just this generally well-liked dude around school with tons of friends but just keeps getting pulled into the bullshit this girl he's known for all of a day keeps getting into because he has the awareness to know that she's going to die if there's no one to help her. I don't even think he really likes her that much, and for good reason since she's an asshole.

Andras and Eligor kind of rocked their world right out of the gate. Not all that surprising since only using physical moves won't really get you anywhere and your partner has no Persona to begin with. They're really going to need more members of this team soon, since Mana has no brain cells and Sotaro has about two dedicated entirely to keeping her alive, effectively making it zero between the both of them.

Got a couple new members of the Social Link coming out here. Wonder what they're going to get up to in the future.

That's all we've got now. Took a bit longer to post this than anticipated, but that's probably not an issue. Thanks for reading. Share if you're enjoying. Always remember to dodge.


	4. Forming a Team

_Seeing as her excursions into the other world aren't close to ending, Mana agrees to form a team._

* * *

"Is that all you've got in the end?"

As he lay dying on the ground, Sotaro heard these words ring out in his mind. He didn't have the strength to really pay attention to anything else going on around him, but this was different. It was like the words were spoken inside his own brain. In fact, they almost sounded like his own voice speaking to him.

"Leave it to you to crack under pressure," it told him. "People were counting on you, but you just couldn't help letting them down."

Whatever this voice was managed to zero in on his fears like nothing else. If he was entirely honest with himself, it was almost starting piss him off.

"Want to prove me wrong?" it asked, almost as if it knew what he was thinking. "Then get up. Go on. Fight back already. Or are you just going to roll over again like you always do?"

Despite his injuries, he suddenly felt a surge of power run through his body. Rolling onto his stomach, Sotaro grit his teeth and tried to push himself up. "I won't..." he began. "I won't...let it end...this way..."

"Then hurry up!" it screamed. "I am thou, thou art I… Cut a path through the darkness with your burning spirit! Burn your enemies to cinder!"

Punching the ground, Sotaro chuckled. "That's right. It's too early for me to die. I've got way too much homework to finish first." Making a mental note to think of better one liners after they made it out of here, he finally stood back up as his body became engulfed in a fiery aura.

Not far off, Mana struggled to contain both opponents on her own. Though they weren't particularly overpowered compared to her, she'd been blinded by her rage and sorrow and was commanding her Persona erratically. If things kept up this way, it wouldn't be long before she made a very costly and deadly mistake.

"Looks like you could use some help," Sotaro said, flicking a stray hair out of his face in a way he was sure looked totally badass. He didn't wait to be acknowledged before calling, "Merlin! Let's take these guys down!"

The aura around him collected around the hole in his gut, the wound closing just as his own Persona awakened. It took the form of a blue kendama-like being sans ball, a red, pointed head with eyes that vaguely resembled a kind of witch's hat sitting atop the point. A pair of spindly black arms extended from the bulbous parts on either side, both the body and head rotating slowly in opposite directions.

"You're okay?" Mana said, exasperation and relief evident in her voice in equal measure. The lull in her attack gave her enemies ample time to launch their own counter, though, the owl man blasting shards of ice in her direction. They were melted mid-flight by a torrent of flames blasting across the battlefield, however.

"I know I'm beautiful, but try not to get distracted while we're fighting some guys," Sotaro said while taking a position next to Mana.

"Don't tell me what to do," she mumbled, trying her hardest to still seem tough despite how overjoyed it made her to know he was still alive. It's not like they were friends, she'd say, but it's not like she wanted him to get killed in this terrible place.

With their courage restored, the two redoubled their attack on the Shadows. Merlin launched another fireball, striking the owl directly and doing what appeared to be massive damage. As the knight charged forward to provide assistance, Mu Guiying crossed blades with it once more, occupying it and preventing the two from teaming up again.

Sotaro himself ran forward, whipping out his yo yo once more. Merlin shot another blast of fire, this time at its master's weapon. Spinning the burning toy above his head, he smashed it into the side of the Shadow's face before it had time to recover from its stunned state, seemingly doing enough damage to destroy it.

"Not bad," Mana complimented, almost impressed by his newfound badassery. "Can't let you show me up, though. I've had mine way longer than you." Seemingly inspired to end things quickly, Mu Guiying pushed back its enemy before holding its sword out in front of it. The weapon split in half, the side closest to the wielder falling backwards as if the pommel had a hinge on it.

Gripping the center of the two halves, Mu Guiying grabbed a string made of light just as it appeared going from one blade tip to the other. Somehow, it had transformed its weapon into a bow, evident by the matching arrow it was pulling back.

Though the Shadow tried to evade the upcoming attack, its horse reared back as a ring of fire appeared around its feet. While charging through it would be an option, that momentary hesitation provided its enemy all the time it needed to charge and fire the attack, an arrow of holy energy shooting straight through the horse's head and into the slot of its helmet. It dispersed into whatever it was made of seconds later.

Losing herself in the moment, Mana actually turned and returned a high five Sotaro extended, composing herself moments later and shoving her hands in her pocket to try and appear unassuming. "Took care of that," she said. "Now which way is out?"

"Probably whichever way the door opens up," Sotaro added, suddenly sounding like he was out of breath. "Hey, I think I might still be dying. Or about to pass out. I don't know. Guess we're going to find out."

Mana ran over and caught him as he began to fall, pulling one of his arms over her shoulder. "Could you have maybe waited to do this when we got back? You're really heavy." Fortunately, they seemed to be in the clear given a door similar to the one from their last visit opened up not far away, freeing them from the nightmare world.

With quite a bit of effort, Mana managed to drag the unconscious Sotaro back to school. She had no clue where he lived and didn't want to have a conversation with Ueno about why the guy from the other day had passed out in the middle of the school day. Letting him sleep it off in the nurse's office seemed like the best option for the time being.

It was around the time several people volunteered to help carry Sotaro completely unprompted that Mana realized he might actually be kind of popular around here. This came hand in hand with an extra serving of guilt over disrupting his peaceful existence with her personal problems and the goings on of that other world. If it wasn't crystal clear before, it certainly was now: She was a nuisance.

She ditched class for the rest of the day to wait for him to wake up, several people expressing concern he might be one of the coma victims. She knew better, of course, but it wasn't like she could explain he'd been mentally exhausted from calling out a monster from inside his soul to get in a fight for him. For now, she simply argued that he ate something bad while they were out for lunch and needed to sleep it off.

A few hours after the end of the school day, he finally began to stir. With a small cough, he sat up in the uncomfortable cot and looked around. Mana was the only one there, having also fallen asleep from boredom with her head hanging forward as she slumped in the chair next to him. Still, he appreciated the gesture.

"Hey, I'm up," he said while gently nudging her shoulder. He pulled back as she flailed wildly, only calming down when she recognized him. "Damn, what was that about?"

"I get spooked when someone wakes me up," she explained, crossing her arms. "You seem okay now, though. Can you make it to your house on your own?"

"Probably," he said while cracking his neck. "Going to see what I missed while I was out, though. Hopefully a friend took some notes for."

Mana picked up a few papers from the chair beside her, holding them. "A bunch of people stopped by earlier. I took these from them."

"Oh, thanks." He gladly accepted the notes and homework pages as he stood up from the bed, stretching out his back and shoulders. "You know, I almost died, but I kind of feel better than I have in a while. Try to figure that one out."

She didn't reply. After a few seconds of silence, she eventually mumbled, "Sorry." Sotaro turned towards her, quirking a brow in confusion. "Sorry," she repeated, louder this time. "I'm going it alone from now on. I'm not going to bother you again."

"Wait, what are you talking about?"

"I mean because you almost died. You're just some normal guy and I came and involved you in stuff you don't have anything to do with. It's selfish and stupid and it's all because… I don't know, I was afraid, I guess. That place freaks me out and I don't know what it is or why it exists or anything about it, so I kind of felt better having someone else with me. But I'm not going to get anyone else hurt again."

He blinked a few times. "Seriously, what are you talking about? Yeah, you're kind of pushy, but I was on board with going back there."

"Because I'm an asshole and made you go."

"How much of an asshole you are isn't really the point here. I came along to help you out. Plus, I'd kind of be lying if I said I wasn't also kind of curious about that place."

She sighed heavily, growing frustrated by his lack of willingness to just accept her apology. "Look, I should have known better than to drag a normal dude into somewhere like that even if you were on board with it. I'm not going to put you in danger again just because I'm selfish."

"But I'm not a normal dude anymore," he argued. "Now I've got a Persona, too. I'm at least as capable as you are now, so there shouldn't be a problem if I came with you again some time."

"Okay, first of all, I am definitely stronger than you, so let's make that clear right now. Second, I'll be fine on my own. You've got a life to get back to. I'll probably get kicked out of this school soon, anyway, so hanging around me is just going to lower your reputation."

"You're really negative," he said. "About pretty much everything, honestly. I'm going to tell you this now so there's no confusion, okay? Even if you tell me to get lost, I'm still going to go back there. Maybe not with you, but I'm going. I'm in too deep at this point."

He stuck out his hand, Mana leaning back in her chair a bit on instinct. "Personally, I think we'd be much better as a team than trying to figure out what that place is about on our own. It's up to you, though. If we're a team, let's make it official now. Either way, no regrets going forward."

She didn't want to admit he was right. If he was really intent on going back there, it was just the better option for them to do it together. While her actions leading up to this point weren't exactly admirable, this was where they found themselves at right now. Right now, they needed each other.

Grunting and grumbling, she eventually took his hand. "Fine, you're right."

With a nod, Sotaro shook her hand. "Great. Now, let's think of a team name."

"Nope," she said bluntly.

"Every team needs a name," he argued. "Something cool, like...the Nagaka Warriors!"

"What, are we some kind of sports team now?"

"It's cool!"

"It really isn't. It makes it sound like we're more than just two dipshit teenagers, too. False advertising."

"Well, we could expand later. Who knows how many more people like us might be in town? You did say you got your Persona a long time ago. Maybe there's others like that."

"Even if there are, let's try not to drag anyone else in there."

"Could be lots of help, and we'd need at least nine people if we ever started playing baseball."

"Good luck with that, coach." She grabbed her bag and stood up. "I'm heading home now. Call us whatever you want since I don't really care." Parting ways, the two left school behind to go about the rest of their days, texting back and forth about what to do next and where the next route to that world might be (plus more badgering about the team name). It all went nowhere, though, the two of them calling it a night before establishing anything of value about their mission.

Seeming to be a trend these days, Mana's slumber was interrupted once she awoke inside that unfamiliar bed in the Velvet Room. Strangely, Igor was nowhere to be found, Alphonse standing behind a black, circular table lined with a blue tablecloth.

"Just you tonight?" Mana asked, slowly rolling onto the floor and collecting herself.

"I've been instructed to assist you," Alphonse replied, ignoring what she said. "My ability allows me to predict the future through the use of the tarot. The accuracy and specificity of this ability is increased based on my connection to the recipient, but given I have no desire to know you, I will only be able to provide the vaguest of hints as to what may come for you."

"Helpful," she replied sarcastically, standing across from him as he retrieved a deck of cards from his vest and shuffled them on the table. While his unfriendly demeanor and a preface that basically said this whole thing was a crapshoot, Mana could tell that he did have some kind of skill based purely on how expertly his fingers moved while mixing and gathering the cards.

"Cut the deck," he ordered, placing the cards down in a neat stack. She did so, placing the bottom portion of the deck onto its top. He then fanned out all 78 cards in a single, fluid motion. "Now choose one."

Looking them over, Mana gave up trying to figure out which one she was "destined" to pick, just reaching out to grab one somewhere near the top right. She pulled it away from the others while trying to disturb the cards as little as possible, flipping it over and placing it into the center of the table.

"You've chosen the Devil in the upright position," he said. "I don't foresee much positivity in the near future."

"Kind of figured when you said the card was the Devil. Are you going to give me some advice on how to stop that, or…?"

"No," he said plainly. "Good luck. Now return to sleep."

Unable to argue yet filled with disappointment and rage, Mana did so. But in, like, a really pissed off way.

* * *

Took a while to get this done. I've known what I wanted this chapter to be for a while, but both my inability to write it properly and work keeping me busy stopped me from getting things done for a good while. Trying to get caught up on everything starting with the most neglected work, so I'll try to get another update out sooner than before.

If you can't tell, the Personas this time around have no real theming or cohesion between them. This is not me being lazy but a deliberate choice meant to represent how the eventual team that we just saw form is made up of a bunch of misfits from all different walks of life who, despite having very different personalities and ideals, still come together to support each other. "But I thought Sotaro was popular and a good student!" you're already saying, but you should know better than to think he won't have an angsty Persona backstory eventually.

I'm very much open to ideas for team names at the moment. I haven't settled on anything yet, so this is a prime opportunity to influence the story going forward like I talked about in the first chapter. Become a part of history, all you early adopters.

That's all I've got for you now. Thanks for reading. Share if you're enjoying. Always remember to set your toys on fire for additional damage.


	5. The Devil

_Mana and Sotaro investigate what seems to be a disturbance near the edge of town._

* * *

Mana nearly bashed through the front door to Ueno's house, foolishly having taken too many things into her hands and ardently refusing to put any of them down in order to turn the knob. Kicking off her shoes, she proceeded to the kitchen and dropped several plastic bags worth of food onto the counter top before beginning to put it away.

"How much did all of that cost you?" Ueno asked as he came into the room.

"Don't worry about it," she replied, closing the door to the fridge now that it finally contained something besides leftover delivery food.

"I can pay you back for that. You didn't need to go out and buy all of that."

"Don't worry about it," she said again, sounding more annoyed than normal. "I've got cash. If you want to help, find a way to get me some Wei Ya. This town has absolutely nothing." The bright lights inside the grocery she'd gone to before had already irritated her, but the fact this place seemed devoid of many of the comforts of her city home only made that worse.

He nodded, watching her place things into various cupboards before saying, "Yeah, I'm sure we can order some. That's a stock powder, right? Do you make soup with it?"

"Pretty much anything," she told him, ripping open a granola bar's wrapper and biting off the end. "Not super authentic, I guess, but my mom and me always liked it." Realizing she'd actually disclosed some personal information about herself just now, she shoved the rest of the snack into her mouth to prevent anything else from slipping out.

"I'll order some," he replied with a nod.

"Then go do that," she said. "Give me space so I can work."

"You're cooking?" he asked, almost shocked. "Do you want help with anything? I'm not that good, but I could at least chop vegetables."

"Order my damn seasoning. That's how you help." He nodded a few times in response before hurrying out of the room, leaving Mana to look around in circles as she tried to figure out exactly what she was going to do. Despite having bought plenty of food earlier, she'd done so with no real plan on what to cook right after.

Things were already off to a rocky start when it took her five minutes to actually locate the rice cooker, the copious amounts of noise she was making that Ueno could no doubt hear filling her with shame and frustration. After digging out from behind some pots in a cabinet and almost slamming it on the counter, she went to the fridge to see what she'd actually be able to use.

She had the forethought to at least get the stuff to make miso soup, so that was a start. One especially limiting factor was that she wasn't able to grab any kind of alcohol to cook with, meaning she'd be limited to things like sesame oil and soy sauce for flavoring and marinades. It was a bit suspect when she tried to walk out of the store with a bottle of sake while still in her uniform, rightfully being denied when she got to the checkout. To their credit, she probably couldn't be trusted not to start drinking it.

Cracking the window, she lit a cigarette and got to work. There was no guarantee that what she managed to come up with would be a fine dining experience, but compared to yet more pizza for the seventh night in a row, it had to be an improvement.

Roughly an hour and four cigarettes passed, the resulting food looking not half bad. In the end, she'd managed to concoct some fairly plain hamburger steaks topped with fried eggs, a salad with pickled vegetables, miso soup, and white rice. Considering the circumstances, she was almost proud enough to take a picture. In fact, she did.

She made her way to the den, banging the side of her fist against the wall. "Hey, go get your food," she said, not wanting to appear too enthused with having cooked him a meal.

"That was pretty quick," he said, wanting it to come off as a compliment despite the somewhat defensive look he got in response. "Oh, before I forget." He grabbed the laptop from the table in front of him, turning it to Mana. "I found someone who ships here. They won't charge shipping if you pick it up at the convenience store. Is that good?"

"Yeah, whatever. Just order it." In her efforts to look more annoyed, Mana turned her head to look elsewhere in the room before rolling her eyes. As she did, a peculiar photograph hanging from the wall caught her attention. Ueno was in it, though a good deal younger, with someone she'd never seen smiling beside him.

"Hey, what's this?" she asked, holding up the picture in its frame.

For just a moment, Ueno's hand clenched before relaxing. "Oh, that." He forced a small laugh. "Just a picture of me. And my wife, which is probably what you were asking about."

"Since when were you married?" Mana asked, turning the picture around to examine the pair. This alleged wife was fairly pretty and, she assumed, probably too good for a schlub like him. Medium length dark hair, a round and friendly face, and some impressively sharp eyeliner. Most shocking of all, though, was the knowledge that Ueno used to have a goatee.

"A while back," he finally answered after a moment of contemplation. "You actually met her once when you were about three. We came down to see your parents for a few days." With a small chuckle, he added, "You kept pulling on her hair, I remember. Saying it was pretty and nice."

"How do you even remember something like that?" she asked, unnecessarily embarrassed over her actions as a toddler.

Ueno shrugged. "Just do, I guess." He didn't say anything for a few seconds, predicting what she'd say next. "You're wondering where she is now, right? Probably thinking she divorced me, or something. I wouldn't really blame you for assuming, honestly. I never was good enough for her. The fact is, though, she didn't. She actually died twelve years ago."

"Oh, damn," Mana blurted out, immediately regretting saying something so insensitive. Even she wasn't normally that bad. "I mean, sorry. I didn't..."

"It's alright," he said with a smile. "You're living here, so it was bound to come up eventually. It's actually kind of a funny story if you want to hear it." The way he said that made it clear it was anything but humorous.

Hesitating at first, Mana eventually agreed to listen, feeling like she owed it to him after broaching such an uncomfortable subject. Something about the way he spoke now made it seem like he'd never really had a chance to talk about all of it before. "Well, about a year before, she was diagnosed with lung cancer. At first, they said it was inoperable, but the damnedest thing happened after about six months; it went into remission."

He laughed, scratching his head. "We couldn't believe it. A little after that it shrunk enough for them to operate, and that went off without a hitch. It was...perfect. But the night we got home after she was discharged from the hospital, there was a pretty bad blizzard. Didn't really affect us since we have heating, but then we decided to go out and see the town the next morning. I know we probably made a bad decision there, but after you've spent close to a year on and off in a hospital, sometimes you just want to go out and enjoy life again."

Sighing quietly, he continued. "We got to the edge of the street, then she slipped on some ice. I mean, that's ridiculous, isn't it? You go through hell surviving cancer, but then you slip and fall on some ice and break your head open? It's..." He shook his head, trying to laugh at the absurdity of it all. It was the only way he knew how to cope with it.

"Sorry, that was probably a bit much," he finally said after an uncomfortably long silence. "Now you know, at least. Anyway, there's food ready, right? If you give me a second, I'll go clean off the dining room table."

"Don't worry about it," she said. "I'll eat in my room."

He nodded, pausing for a moment before asking, "Did I upset you? I'm sorry if that whole thing was...you know. I didn't mean to just go off like that."

"No, it's fine," she told him. "I just like eating alone."

"Well, if you're sure. I should probably still clean up in there soon." He thankfully didn't press the issue further, though Mana couldn't actually tell whether he'd believed her in truthfully saying she just preferred to eat by herself. Either way, it left her without much of an appetite by the time they went off to their own locations.

As she picked at her food, her phone began to ring. Relieved to have something to distract her from all of this, she picked up. "Hey, I've got news," Sotaro said from the other end as soon as they connected.

"Must be important if you couldn't just text me like a normal person," she replied. Despite saying this, she was glad to be able to speak to someone right now.

"It is," he said, not realizing she was trying to be snide. "Not totally sure if it has anything to do with the other place yet, but I've heard some rumors."

"What rumors? Some ghost in the toilets? That dude who owns the ramen shop is a secret agent? A bunch of soldiers marching through town?"

"No," he said, obviously perplexed. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"I don't know. I think that was in some game. Whatever, though. Just tell me what the rumor is already."

"Right, right. Anyway, there are some rumors about this guy. He works on a farm kind of on the edge of town. Some people who live near there say he's, like, laughing like some kind of freak all the time and yelling at the animals."

"And why does this concern you? Just let people be crazy in peace."

"No, don't you get it? What if it has something to do with those Shadows? Like, just the other day at that mailbox we went to. Remember how it was all beat up and no one used it?"

"No one used it?" she asked.

"Of course not. You saw what it looked like. But – okay, stop interrupting – but after we got back, someone must have come and fixed it up. It looks brand new. I just saw someone put a letter in there yesterday, too."

"What about that alley?"

"Same deal, kind of. Everyone but us was kind of avoiding it. I even asked around to make sure my hunch was right. Now, though? People are walking through again."

"Basically, you're saying that Shadows acting up in that place make stuff happen in our world, right?"

"Exactly." He felt particularly proud of himself for coming up with this theory.

Thinking for a few seconds, Mana couldn't help but agree. "That actually sounds kind of plausible. But go back to this dude. What's it matter if he acts weird? Could just be he's a weird dude normally."

"Maybe, but I think it's worth a shot. Wouldn't you rather go and find out it's nothing than hear about him going on a rampage and killing someone with a pitchfork?"

That was a pretty compelling argument right there. Not only that, something about it made her think back to her meeting with Alphonse from the other night. Maybe it was his mentioning of pitchforks given their association with the Devil and all. Either way, she was convincing herself more and more by the second. "Fine, we'll go."

"Great. There's no school tomorrow, so we can go then. My parents said I could borrow the car, so I'll pick you up in the morning."

"You've got a license?" she asked incredulously. "Wow, that's almost cool."

"I'll settle for the 'almost' for now," he said, beaming with pride despite no one else being around to see it. "Rest up. No idea what we're going to see out there tomorrow. The Nagaka Warriors have to make a strong showing now that it's our first mission as a real team."

"Pick a different name," she said before signing off. Setting her phone down, she started in on her food in earnest. Though she wasn't hungry, it would be a shame to waste it after working so hard. Sotaro was right, too, in that they had no idea what to expect from another person. She'd need the energy.

The next morning saw Ueno awaken earlier than normal. To repay his guest for the other night, he decided to make a real breakfast for the two of them. Bacon sizzled away in the pan as he heard Mana's descent down the stairs. "I thought for sure I had at least a couple more minutes," he said cheerily, his expression turning to one of shock after he saw her. "When did that happen?"

"Earlier," she replied, shaking out her now shoulder length hair and shedding loose strands onto the floor. Didn't actually intend for that to happen but it was too late to back down now. "What's all this about?"

"Just wanted to make something to eat," he told her. "It'll be ready in a few minutes if you wait in the dining room. I cleaned that out finally. Oh, you look good like that, by the way."

Ignoring his compliment, she went for the toaster oven, foolishly grabbing a searing hot piece of toast with her bare fingers. "Can't," she said plainly. "Got something to do now." Ignoring the pain, she held the food between her teeth far enough from her lips to keep herself from burning until it could cool enough to consume.

"This early? I guess you took my advice about getting involved." He moved the bacon off the heat and opened the fridge. "If you're going out, at least take this." What he pulled out was what appeared to be a large plastic container wrapped in a purple cloth.

"Fine," she said through a mouthful of still too hot toast, taking the parcel by the knot at the top of it. "I'll be back later. Don't really know when."

"Sure thing," he said with a nod. "Stay safe. Don't get in trouble."

"No promises," she said, slipping on her shoes at the door and heading outside. A few minutes earlier, Sotaro had texted her to say he'd be showing up around that time. Lo and behold, there he was in a slightly rusted, pumpkin orange Suzuki X-90.

Taking a moment to collect herself at the absolute atrocity in front of her, Mana got in on the passenger side. "Your car looks like shit, dude," she greeted him, holding the container in her lap and buckling her seat belt.

"I know, I know," he sighed. "You barely ever need to drive here, so we've never had to upgrade. Honestly, it's kind of impressive it's stayed working for so long. They bought this thing before I was even born."

"As long as it can get us where we're going," she said. "Where is it we're going, by the way?"

"It's not too far," he said, turning the key and heading off down the road. "It's this little farm outside of town. Owned by this old couple. They're actually kind of cool and they make good stuff. Everything's all organic."

"And now one of their workers got hit by, like, Shadow fever, or something."

"That's what it seems like. I'm not really sure what the plan is once we get there, but I guess we can just start by looking around. People I talked to said he's usually working on this day."

"Guess that's what we'll do, then." As he'd said, the drive wasn't that long. It lasted barely over twenty minutes, the two spending the time fiddling with the radio to try and get the CD player to work or pick up any signals with the bent half of an antenna that was left after so long. Neither endeavor was a success.

Pulling up on a dirt road beside a wooden fence lined with chicken wire, the two exited the car. "I'm going to leave this here," Mana said, placing the container in the seat before closing the door.

"What's in there, anyway?" Sotaro asked before locking it, walking around back to the trunk.

"Food, I guess." Leaning against the car, she watched as he retrieved a shovel, grabbing it from him as he held it out. "Oh, nice."

"I remembered you said you were going to bring a shovel last time and never got to. Probably not super necessary since we've got Personas, but it can't hurt." Closing the trunk, they began scouting the perimeter of the farm.

On a first inspection, nothing seemed all that unusual about this place. Green pastures, several areas with tilled soil for planting, and a lot of animals wandering about doing their animal things. Despite this, though, both of them could feel...something from the moment they arrived here.

It wasn't something they could necessarily describe, but it was surely there. Some kind of subtle difference in the air compared to other areas of the town. Mana would normally suggest it was just the cleaner air, but considering Nagaka's normal remoteness, that didn't seem to be much of a factor.

Strangest of all was that it didn't even seem all that sinister or unnatural, either. Just...different. The closest comparison they could make would be like trying on a new pair of glasses in a different shape from your old – they weren't any better or worse in terms of prescription, but the change itself to your perception was slightly jarring.

Neither one really acknowledge this to the other, though, so they didn't speak of it. They didn't have time to speak of much anything, in fact, as only a few minutes passed before they heard the sound of guttural cackling coming from deeper into the farm.

"Guess that's our guy," Sotaro said, doing a double take as he watched Mana immediately hop the fence and start running towards the sound. Realizing that that probably was the most direct way of engaging things, he clumsily followed suit, catching up to her as she tried and failed to shove past a cow that was in her way.

Averting a full on slug fest with the aforementioned cow, the two eventually came upon the man in question jabbing a pitchfork into an enormous pile of hay to transfer it into a baler next to a weathered gray barn, still laughing like a demon the entire time. "Kind of freaking me out up close," Sotaro admitted, starting to get cold feet while he watched the clearly in shape guy violently stab things over and over again.

"Quit whining," Mana told him, deciding then and there to get the man's attention. "Hey! What's your problem?"

It took a moment for him to register what she'd said, stopping midway through another load of hay to toss it back into the pile, dramatically spinning the fork and stabbing into the ground. "You say something?" he said roughly, turning to face the two and subtly flexing so his muscles popped through tight black t-shirt he wore. "You're trespassing, you know."

"We don't want to hear that from you," Mana said, matching his threatening attitude perfectly. Sotaro, on the other hand, almost looked like he wanted to run away just to get out of that piercing red gaze.

"You know, this place is owned by a couple of old folks," the man said, scratching his stubble with a gloved hand. "And it kind of pisses me off to think punks like you would bust in here to do who knows what to some nice old folks and their farm, you know?"

"Oh, yeah, we're definitely the ones people should worry about," Mana said with a scowl. "Not like you. Bet you're some kind of upstanding citizen, right?"

Sotaro nudged her shoulder, trying to be the voice of reason and conflict avoidance. "Hey, we're just here to find where the Shadow is, remember? Trying to talk to this guy isn't going to accomplish anything."

"Personally, I don't really care what you're here for," the man interrupted, a strange blue fire creeping up along his back from the base of the his spine. "But I'll give you one chance to get out of here. If you do that, I'll leave you with just a scare." As he said this, his face twisted into a gnarly grin, short hair standing on end into dozens of tiny, black spikes. "So what's it going to be, huh?"

As he said this, a howl rang through the overcast sky. From behind the man, a terrible black beast had emerged, a trio of glowing red eyes arranged in a pyramid shape above a dog-like muzzle. A wild mess of dark fur seemed to shed off its body continuously, each strand of coarse hair burning up in an orange fire as it left it.

"Is that-" Sotaro began.

"Persona!" Mana yelled, her eye beginning to glow.

"In the real world?"At that moment, the two simultaneously realized what that feeling they'd been having since they got here actually was. Somehow, this place allowed people to summon their Personas without traveling to that other world. The broader implications of this revelation remained to be seen, but the immediate ones certainly implied an upcoming battle.

"Mu Guiying!" Mana called, her Persona emerging from the area around her eye, her enemy evidently shocked that anyone else had a power like his.

"Guess we're doing this now," Sotaro lamented as he fell back. "Merlin!"

"I can shout stuff, too!" the man called back. "Sick 'em, Hellhound!" His Persona howled once again, opening its jaws to reveal a pair of lashing tongues among rows of serrated teeth. From deep within its throat, a swirling mass of dark energy began to form, blasting out and striking the ground between the three of them.

Mu Guiying cut through the dust the attack kicked up, though the enemy seemed to have disappeared. "Duck!" Sotaro called to Mana, just in time for her to avoid getting smacked in the back of the head with the blunt end of the man's pitchfork. Evidently, he'd used the confusion to sneak around the hay and launch a surprise attack.

Her Persona did an about face, swinging its sword to meet the Hellhound's metallic claws. Her own strike with the shovel was knocked into the ground by the man's pitchfork, receiving a kick in the stomach for her troubles and sending her tumbling back.

Almost as an afterthought, Hellhound's head twisted just slightly farther around than seemed normal, shooting another blast of energy to meet with a fireball Merlin had sent from behind. It was clear that, whoever this guy was, he was leagues more experienced in using a Persona than either of them.

Mana, refusing to be beaten, swung her shovel from side to side nearly in time with Mu Guiying's sword strikes, her enemy barley expending any efforts in simply stepping and hopping backward to avoid both their attacks. All it took was a stab in the solar plexus with the handle end of the pitchfork to send her to her knees, wind thoroughly knocked out of her.

A yo yo wrapped itself around the weapon as he recalled it. Looking to the side, he could see Sotaro attempting to pull it from his hand while Merlin charged another fireball between its hands. With a sneer, the man shouted, "Useless!" before turning the tables and yanking the pitchfork towards himself.

His superior strength easily tripped up his opponent, sending him face first into the dirt and providing an ample opening for Hellhound to rush in and grab Merlin around the neck with its teeth, directing the attack into the air. Sotaro felt the teeth clamp around his Persona's neck like a vice, understanding for the first time that the two truly were one and would share any damage they took. The heavy boot pressing down on top of his head wasn't too great, either.

"You ready to call it quits?" the man said to both of them, his pitchfork pointed at Mana from his position atop Sotaro. Prideful as she was and determined as he was, neither could really muster the strength to continue the fight. They'd been thoroughly and truly beaten.

Seeing the look of defeat on both their faces, he recalled his Persona and lifted his foot. "Good. Then get out of here before I call the cops. I've got work to do." As he walked past her to resume baling hay, Mana saw the opening she needed. Gripping her shovel tightly, used all her strength to drive the handle between his legs, sending him doubling over onto the ground.

"That's what you get!" she told him, standing above him in something that certainly couldn't be called triumph.

"What the hell was that?" Sotaro yelled. "You can't just do that!"

"The hell I can't," she said, hands on her hips. "I took out the enemy."

"But you can't just kick a guy in the balls, though," he argued. "That's not cool!"

"I didn't kick. I used a shovel."

"Doesn't hurt less," the man grumbled from the ground.

"You don't get opinions," Mana said, apparently feeling haughty now that she'd taken him out with a cheap shot.

Sotaro shoved her into the hay pile, kneeling down and patting the man on the back. "Sorry about that. I know you don't really know what's happening. Just chill out here while we find out what's making you act all weird and things should go back to normal in no time."

"What are you people talking about?" he groaned. "I was just trying to do my job and you freaks attacked me."

"Sure you were," Mana said, collecting herself and glaring at Sotaro. "You were laughing like you were on drugs since we got here."

"I just do that!" he told them. "Sometimes I pretend I'm like a giant ruling over my land and tearing apart mountains and shit. It helps motivate me. Is there some law that says I can't laugh?" He rolled onto his back, legs still clenched together. "Kid, go grab me a cold one out of that cooler," he said to Sotaro, gesturing with his thumb over his shoulder.

After being handed a tall beer can, he placed it between his legs, flinching from the cold. "What are you maniacs doing here, anyway?" he asked.

"We thought there was a Shadow here," Sotaro explained. "They're...well, we're not really sure what they are completely, but they're basically monsters from another world made up of, like, bad thoughts people have, and damn that really sounded bad when I said it out loud."

"Are you sure you're not the ones on drugs?" he asked.

"We're telling the truth," Mana said. "What's so hard to believe about that? You've got a Persona just like us, so you've got to have seen that world."

"No clue what you're even saying," he replied. "Hellhound just showed up the day I fell onto some sharp stuff. Thought I died, but he pulled me back. I don't know nothing about some 'other world' crap."

Sotaro shook his head, regretting every single action he'd taken today. "Man, we really screwed up this time."

"He still yells at animals," Mana said. "He can't be that good of a guy."

"Of course I yell at them," he said defensively. "Look at them! They're a bunch of lovable idiots who can't stop trying to get killed!" He pointed to a very fat pig that had fallen on its side to take a nap. "They're always wandering off and trying to get in fights with snakes or eat weird mushrooms that start growing near the fences. So I yell at them and tell them to knock it off. It's just what you have to do when you raise all your animals without cages."

Bowing his head in shame, Sotaro felt like a true asshole now. "Sorry for causing you so much trouble," he said, looking to Mana and kicking her in the shin.

"Yeah, sorry," she grumbled, mimicking him with disdain.

He waved his hand, cracking open the beer between his legs and taking a long drink. "Needed that," he said after a long sigh. "Anyway, don't worry about it. Like, I totally could get you arrested right now, but I'm not going to. Mostly because I'm an idiot and actually believe that you were here to do something good."

"Thanks, guy," Sotaro said. "You're pretty cool for an old guy."

"I'm 24!" he shouted. "The name's Kosaku Akigami, by the way. Not 'old guy'."

"Sorry!" he apologized again, noticing just then that Mana had disappeared from his side. Looking around, he saw her sneaking around near the barn, several cans of beer under her arm. "Damn it, don't steal from him, too!"

"I haven't had a drink in over a week!" she yelled back as they both turn to look at her. Immediately, she popped the top and sucked down the contents of a full can in less than three seconds.

Kosaku gave a small chuckle. "Nice," he said. "I don't mind if you take some, but maybe chill with it. You don't have to drink everything in one go."

"We're both 17," he told him.

"I mean, I ain't going to tell anyone. I was young once, too." He paused for a moment. "Wait, I still am young! Give me one of those!" He yanked a can from Mana's hand, downing the rest of his first beer and quickly doing the same to a second.

Before she could follow suit, Mana dropped the cans onto the ground. "Hey, give me the keys," she said to Sotaro, holding out her hand.

"What, so you can drive the car through the fence now? Haven't we done enough today?"

"No, dumbass. The stuff I left in the seat. Least we can do is give this guy some lunch for all we've done."

Seeing Kosaku's ears perk up at the mention of food, he relented. "Fine, but don't drive it."

"I'd rather walk for the rest of my life than drive that thing," she said, snatching the keys from him and leaving to grab the container out of the car, returning a few minutes later. Sotaro was currently refusing offers of a drink from Kosaku as she set it down in between all three of them on the ground. "Don't know what's actually in here, so don't blame me if it's a bunch of crap. No idea if Ueno can cook."

Untying the knot, she lifted the container's lid to find six perfectly made onigiri dotted with black sesame seeds. Without even having to say anything, the three grabbed one each of the rice balls and began eating, Mana quickly forced to also eat her words given how well made they were.

After devouring all of them, Kosaku let out a loud belch to echo the group's feelings on the matter. "Beer and rice balls. Not too bad. Almost worth taking a shovel to the nuts."

"Sorry about that," Sotaro repeated. "We thought a Shadow was making you act weird, but I guess you are just weird normally." He turned to Mana, shaking his fist and yelling, "Quit looking smug! You just got a lucky guess!"

"You keep talking about Shadows," Kosaku said, "but what actually are they?"

"It's like I said before, they're kind of like negative thoughts and emotions of people all coming together to form a monster. At least, that's what Mana says."

"Some troll dude told me that in my dreams," she said, sipping on another beer and knowing full well how absurd that explanation was. "It's the truth," she assured them.

"I mean, she does know more about this than me, but..." Sotaro stopped himself, realizing that neither of them had been properly introduced. "Oh, my name's Sotaro, by the way. She's Mana."

"Already said I'm Kosaku, so nice to meet you. I mean, not really since you kind of assaulted me, but you fed me so it's all cool now."

"Like he said," Mana continued, "Shadows are basically negativity, so they screw with stuff going on in our world from where they live. We thought there might be something going on here, but we couldn't find a way into that world. I mean, there definitely is something going on here since we can use our Personas, but it's not a Shadow."

Kosaku nodded. "Yeah, I think I know what you mean. This farm's always been kind of different compared to other places in town. Hellhound's not able to come out just anywhere. Don't really know why, though."

"It's kind of cool to have someone else to talk to about this stuff," Sotaro said. "Almost like we can compare notes."

With a chuckle, Kosaku said, "Guess that makes me your senpai in all this Persona business."

"That pig is more of a senpai than you," Mana said, pointing to the still sleeping swine.

"Porky's a good boy, so that's not even an insult," he said somewhat petulantly.

To keep the two from starting some kind of argument, Sotaro returned to talking about the situation with the Shadows. "We're actually kind of convinced that the Shadows might have something to do with the coma incidents going on. They can make bad stuff happen, so who's to say it's not them instead of some disease? That's basically why we're trying to explore that world and track down Shadow incidents like we were doing here."

"So you're trying to help people, huh?" With a grin and another swig of his drink, Kosaku nodded. "Then I've made up my mind. I'm coming with you from now on."

"Absolutely not," Mana said, Sotaro agreeing but too stunned to say anything. "We don't need anyone else barging in here."

"You want to rewind to when I kicked both your asses without even trying?" he said. "Look, I don't think I'm the strongest guy out there, so what do you think is going to happen when you go up against someone even meaner? Hell, even if I am the strongest, that just means you've got the strongest guy backing you up."

"That's a surprisingly good point," Sotaro agreed.

"No it isn't!" Mana shot back. "We're not involving anyone else in this. It's our job. We can't just bring people in because it's convenient like that."

"I'm volunteering," Kosaku said. "This is my town. I even know some of the people who are in comas right now. I'm not just going to wait around while a bunch of kids try to fix everything. Besides, you could use a chaperon."

"We really don't," Mana said, grumbling and grunting before finally adding, "but I guess you're not talking total bullshit."

Sotaro leaned in close, whispering, "She has a hard time expressing herself, so don't take it personally."

"I will come over there and 'express myself' all over your ass," she barked.

"Look, fighting monsters I can deal with, but if you're going to be doing all that stuff, at least go in the barn." He took an empty beer can to the head for that.

"Anyway," Sotaro said as he was held by the collar. "I think we'd both be cool with you tagging along sometimes. The Nagaka Warriors need all the help they can get right now."

"Aw, is that we're called?" Kosaku asked with a frown. "That kind of sucks. No offense."

"I told you so," Mana said, dusting her hands off after having thrown Sotaro into the haystack. "We'll figure out a name that's not shit later."

"I'll think of some ideas while I'm working. Speaking of which, you two better get out of here. The owners are making the rounds and I don't want to have to explain all of this to them. Been held up bailing this hay for half an hour now."

"Good point," Sotaro said as he tumbled out of the pile. "Guess we'll be seeing you around from now on." The two fist bumped as a show of loyalty, neither managing to get Mana to join in. Collecting their garbage, they left the property (through the front gate this time) to return to town. Though they may not have accomplished what they set out to do, it couldn't be said they weren't making some kind of progress.

* * *

Mana continues to be just the worst. She's going to go far in this world.

It's going to be fun having Kosaku around now. He's sort of been treating his Persona like a weird pet, so that's going to be an interesting change. Also old enough to buy beer and cigarettes for misbehaving children. Expect a lot more farming talk, too.

Sometimes I'm a bit concerned things aren't moving fast enough. I don't know if that's something worth being concerned about since no one's said anything yet, but it's been in my head for a bit now. I'm not going to start speedrunning the game just yet, but you can probably expect the narrative to unfold a bit more quickly in the next few chapters to try and make up for that. Ueno certainly got some development and characterization, though.

Not much to say after that. Thanks for reading. Share if you're enjoying. Always remember to shop with a plan.


	6. The Chariot

_The group invades the other world once more and finds a surprise waiting for them._

* * *

Another week, another headache. With the events at the farm now a day behind her and school once again emerging to bother her, Mana almost found herself longing to fight more Shadows in that other world. At least then she'd be using her time to do something important.

While swapping out her shoes at her locker, she could hear the sounds of mockery coming from the other side. It was a sound she knew quite well given how cruel people could be, spurring her into action despite her annoyance and reservations. She wasn't a good person by any stretch, but bullying others was something that really pissed her off.

"What even is this?" a light haired male student said through his laughter, holding what looked like a long black wig in hand. "Why do you have something like this? You going bald, or something?"

"Give it back," another student mumbled, reaching for it futiley as the first passed it to one of his friends. Upon closer inspection, Mana recognized the one apparently being victimized as the kid who sat in front of her in class.

"You some kind of actor now?" the other said, his laughter cut short as Mana grabbed him by the collar and slammed him against the lockers.

Taking the wig, she placed it on her own head clumsily. "Holding it for me," she said, forcing a vein to pop in her forehead to appear more intimidating. "You going to hassle us any more?" She tossed him to the ground next to his friend.

Both of them shook their heads, backing away slowly for fear of what the delinquent of rumor might do to them. It was safe to say they wouldn't be stealing any wigs for quite a while. "Here," Mana said after they'd both run off, tossing the wig back to its owner.

Wordlessly, the owner turned back to the locker the wig came out of, nestling it into a dark canvas bag. Looking her classmate up and down, nothing seemed all that out of the ordinary save for the very obvious lack of confidence and having a wig for some reason. Probably what attracted those assholes in the first place. "You got a name?" she decided to ask.

Hesitating for a few seconds, he eventually said, "Aoki." Mana could almost swear she saw his icy blue eyes waver for a moment when saying that, though she had no reason to suspect why that might be. As she'd observed before, Aoki seemed pretty plain all things considered. Almost boring, if anything, with uniform buttoned up to the neck, no modifications, and neatly trimmed hair the same color as the wig from before.

"Why _do_ you have that, anyway?" she asked, leaning against the lockers. It wasn't that she particularly cared about the reason so much as she wanted to continue talking to this kid. Not to make a friend, obviously, but because it almost seemed like they were being drawn together.

Though she hadn't noticed until a while after the fact, she remembered feeling that sensation the day before with Kosaku, so she suspected it might have something to do with Personas. It was probably too early to jump to any conclusions, though. That was mostly what she was trying to find a way to confirm by continuing the conversation.

"None of your business," Aoki said, slamming the locker door closed and picking up a schoolbag from the floor.

"Whatever," Mana said with a roll of her eyes. "Not like I care. Just wondering."

"Then don't ask," he said firmly, stomping away. Seemed like kind of an overreaction, but who was she to judge? She'd learned pretty recently what prying too deeply could lead to. Either way, there didn't seem to be anything to indicate her classmate was also a Persona user.

Deciding to show up to class, Mana took her usual seat and tapped at her phone under her desk. While she attempted to converse with Sotaro and Kosaku in their new group chat, her focus continually shifted back to Aoki in front of her. It was seriously getting distracting, made all the more annoying based on the fact she couldn't place why. Things were almost bad enough to force her to start watching porn in the middle of the day just to have something more interesting the look at. Obviously, that was a joke; she promised herself she'd never do that again.

She turned down an offer to eat lunch with Sotaro and his friends, instead staying at her desk and picking at some egg while continuing to watch Aoki. She was aware of how strange and creepy her behavior was but wasn't sure of what to do about it. Some kind of vibe just kept setting off alarms in her head, almost like it was saying they were similar. That being said, it was entirely possible she was just projecting her deeply repressed desire for friends onto what seemed like the only other kid in school as unpopular as she was.

This couldn't last forever, though, as school was only so long. Leaving her bizarre fixation behind, Mana found Sotaro as he was leaving school, the newly forged trio having agreed to go hunting for paths into the other world once they got out of school.

They hadn't realized just how soon after they were meant to get to work, though, spotting Kosaku waiting outside the school in a beat up blue pickup truck, tapping the wheel idly while the stump of a cigarette hung between his lips.

"You want to get put on some kind of watch list?" Mana greeted him, startling him slightly as the two students approached without him noticing.

"What's wrong with a kindly father figure coming to pick up his kids after school?" he asked, snuffing out his cigarette as the two climbed in through the passenger side.

"I don't need another of those in my life," Mana said, arm hanging out the window as Sotaro gestured for her to get buckled in from the center of the backseat.

"You strike me as kind of a screw up older brother, honestly," Sotaro added.

"I have a job and a car!" he wailed. "What am I screwing up? I never even mentioned how I dropped out of college to either of you!"

"I guess that's true," Sotaro replied, nodding his head. "We should all try to question our preconceptions and biases from time to time. Still can't replace my dad, though. Mostly because he's, like, alive and active in my life, so I'm not really looking for a replacement."

"Replace mine," Mana said lazily, placing a cigarette between her lips as the truck began to move. "You probably won't keep trying to call me every night."

Deliberately avoiding that clearly loaded topic, Kosaku instead chose to say, "Hey, probably shouldn't smoke in here. I don't care, but my bro's not into it." He'd apparently taken to the older brother label despite his earlier protest.

"Noted," was all she said, immediately lighting up and taking a large puff, blowing the smoke out the window. "Anyway, where we headed? We just going to wander around like assholes and hope we get lucky again?"

"I've actually got some ideas about where we should go this time," Sotaro said. "I started asking around at lunch to see if anyone's been finding any weird stuff going on in town. Not that many people had, but one guy did point me to an old cafe. Apparently, the owner's been closed for the last few days and no one's really sure why. Some people have seen him through the windows and he kind of just wanders around inside doing nothing."

"Could just be depressed," Kosaku replied. "I do that sometimes. Usually not wearing pants, though." He paused. "Is that guy wearing pants?"

"Didn't come up," Sotaro said. "I think we should at least take a look, though."

"Yeah," Kosaku agreed. "Not wearing pants in a restaurant ain't very sanitary."

"He means for the Shadows," Mana said, flicking ash out the window. "Seems worth a shot, at least. Guess we'll head there." And so they did, arriving at the closed cafe and parking on the side of the road, Kosaku grabbing his own pitchfork while handing Mana a shovel he'd brought for her. As described, a person appearing to be the owner wandered aimlessly inside, beard shaggy as if he hadn't shaved in a good amount of time and eyes bloodshot (though his pants appeared to be intact for the time being).

They walked the perimeter of the building to no avail, inspecting the locked doors for both the front and back as well as the windows. They even tried sitting at the single outside table just to see if that would do anything but still couldn't find a way to pass between worlds. The prospect of breaking in wasn't exactly the next option on the list, but it wasn't out of the realm of possibility.

"We ready to call it?" Kosaku asked, kicking his feet up onto the table.

"I guess," Sotaro said. "We should probably call the police, at least. I don't think the guy inside is doing too good even if this isn't a Shadow thing."

"Good call," he agreed. The three stood up from their seats and prepared to leave. It was frustrating to already be out of ideas for what to do, but there didn't seem to be anything they could influence around here. Whatever was going on in there clearly wasn't something they were able to solve.

Or was it? While they began to walk away, Mana stopped in her tracks after stepping onto a manhole cover. "Hold up," she said, crouching down to examine it. "Probably nothing, but help me move this thing."

"You know those weigh a ton, right?" Kosaku said, though he still came to assist nonetheless. Both of them worked their fingers into the small openings around the sides, lifting with all their might and just managing to raise it out of its housing. Sotaro reached under from there and all three managed to flip it over and out of the way of the hole.

"Did you want to inspect their plumbing?" Sotaro asked skeptically. Mana didn't answer him, focused on climbing down into the hole to test her theory. Without so much as a sight or sound to confirm it, she seemed to blink out of existence from the perspective of the two left behind.

"Damn, looks like she was right," Kosaku said, nodding slowly.

Sotaro crouched down, peering into the hole to make sure she didn't just fall in and knock herself out. "Guess we're next."

"Well, I mean...we could just go." Sotaro looked at him, shocked. "Just hop in my truck and get out of here. Maybe grab some burgers, I don't know."

"Come on," he sighed, jumping into the other world followed shortly by a reluctant Kosaku. The two seemed to fall a short distance onto a cobblestone road, though where they ended up was a bit different from the areas before. Rather than simple non-descript buildings, their path was lined by shops, their signs illegible save for a large, red CLOSED in the windows of each. It was too bad, too, since the various punk/goth/superhero/high fashion couture and distressingly shady-looking desserts on display from several of them were just bizarre enough to be interesting.

Mana had already begun to walk away from where she'd landed, stopping only to look over her shoulder and shout, "Hurry up already or I'm leaving you behind." The group reformed quickly, all of them silently alternating between admiration and confusion at what they saw in the shop windows.

"Guess we can confirm that this place changes now," Sotaro said, voicing the conclusion they'd come to after setting foot inside this world.

"Wonder what would happen if we broke into one of these stores," Kosaku said, sidetracked briefly looking at a really gnarly leather jacket he kind of wanted. "It's probably not illegal, right? Does this place have laws?"

"If it does, there's definitely not one against murder," Sotaro told him. "Whenever we come here something always tries to kill us."

"Which is why we've decided to jump in here with no plan, I assume," he replied.

"Quit whining," Mana barked. "We've been able to handle whatever's come at us so far."

"I mean, I almost died, but I guess I got better," Sotaro said, receiving a dirty look in response for undermining her point. "Anyway, we should probably be trying to figure out where we're going. Usually we just have to walk until we get to a place, but this is kind of different."

Tapping the glass with the end of his weapon, Kosaku suggested, "Maybe we are supposed to break in." In truth, he just really wanted that jacket.

This wasn't what they had to do, obviously. Their true goal came charging at them like Hades himself (the mythological figure, not demonic creature that may or may not be roaming this world) riding a chariot out of the underworld. Flowery description aside, though, the actual creature was a far cry more disappointing, being little more than a little blue demon shoved into a jar.

At least until it spoke. "Finally!" it shouted in what could most accurately be described as a high-pitched growl. "I knew there were humans running around in here!" As all three of them summoned their Personas, the creature immediately dropped straight down onto the ground with a thunk, sinking inside its jar. "Wait, no! Don't kill me! I want to talk to you!"

"Talk to us?" Sotaro asked, Merlin slowly fading away behind him. "Wait, Shadows talk?"

"Not many, but I do," the thing said, peaking out from the top of its jar.

"It's a trick, kill it!" Mana yelled, Mu Guiying raising her sword to strike.

"Wait, let's hear what it has to say," Kosaku said, putting his arm in front of her.

Sotaro nodded, agreeing with Kosaku. "It looks weak enough to deal with if it is a trick, so there's no harm in just talking." With some grumbling, they managed to get her to agree.

Coaxed out of hiding and having raised up, the Shadow revealed its true intentions. "I'll just cut to the chase – I want to join you losers."

"Master negotiator, huh?" Kosaku mocked. "Not really sure we need a mascot."

"You're weak, too," Mana added. "You'll just slow us down. Besides, you'd be killing other Shadows and you'll probably wimp out when it comes down to it."

The creature shook his head. "Nah, I'm fine with that. It's not like Shadows have any real loyalty to each other. Most of us aren't even sentient." After a confused look between the humans, he asked, "You knew that, right? You actually...know about us and Neirosoi, right?"

"The what now?" Sotaro asked upon hearing the unfamiliar word.

The Shadow began to laugh uncontrollably, pounding a tiny hand on the rim of its jar. "You chumps just ran in here one day not knowing anything? What's wrong with you?"

"I ask myself that every morning in the mirror," Kosaku said. "Explain. What do you know about this place?"

"Damn, you guys are funny," the creature said, reigning in its laughter. "So I'm going to talk to you like you're babies, since you apparently don't know anything. This place you're stomping around in? It's Neirosoi. It's like a world made out of the dreams of you humans."

"Can I call it Dreamland instead?" Sotaro asked. "That's easier to pronounce."

"I really don't care," he replied, continuing the explanation. "That's what we are. Shadows, I mean. We're like the leftover dreams from people that clump together and form creatures. Most of us don't have much of an identity because of that, but some of us end up pretty handsome and cool like me."

"I think we should still kill it," Mana interrupted. "It's started lying to us." They waved her off, intent on listening to more.

"You're probably about to ask about good dreams and bad dreams and all of that. It kind of doesn't matter. I guess there are some pretty nasty guys out there who seem like they're made of nightmares, but I've never really wanted to get close enough to ask. Point is, we're the unconscious thoughts of humans. That's why we're called Shadows."

"Branding's on point," Kosaku said with a nod. "So what about the weird stuff Shadows do to our town? How's all that work?"

"Well, it's like being asleep and being awake. You get good sleep, you have a good time. You get bad sleep and you're trudging through your day wanting to die. If too many Shadows come to one area or too much of our energy builds up in a place, you'll probably see some affects over there."

"Would that mean there's a bunch of Shadows around wherever that guy's shop would be?" Sotaro asked.

"I don't know what guy you're talking about, but probably. I can feel some not that far off from here."

This made all three of them immediately jump to attention. "You sense Shadows?" Mana asked. "Are they coming to attack?"

"Pretty much," he answered. "We've all got kind of a sense for each other. We can tell where humans are, too, which is probably why those guys are waiting for you."

"How many?" Kosaku asked, cracking his neck on either side.

"Only three," the Shadow said. "They don't seem that tough. Shouldn't be that tough for a bunch of scary Persona users like you."

"We'll talk more later," Sotaro said. "For now, show us where they are." Surprisingly, the Shadow was more than happy to comply, leading them down a path between two of the shops that they could have sworn wasn't there before. It was now readily apparent there really was quite a lot about this place they didn't know yet. "Oh, hey, what's your name?"

"You talking to me?" the Shadow said as it floated in front of the ground.

"Yeah. If you want to be part of the Nagaka Warriors, we should at least know your name first."

"Stop calling us that," Mana pleaded, almost driven to hit him with her shovel.

"It really sucks," Kosaku said.

"Changed my mind, I don't want to be part of a group with a name like that," the Shadow agreed, officially bridging the gap between species just to further dunk on Sotaro.

"I don't see you guys coming up with anything better," he said defensively.

With a grunt, Mana was forced to make an alternative. They'd been struggling with this for far too long and it was time to put an end to it. "Redeemers. First thing that came to mind. We're that now."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Sotaro asked. "I don't get it."

"Sounds kind of metal, so I'm into it," Kosaku said.

"I could live with that," the Shadow agreed.

"You don't get a say," Mana shot back despite the fact it would undermine her decision.

With a sigh, Sotaro threw up his hands. "I guess that works. I don't hate it, at least. Oh, and you never said your name, Shadow."

"Agathion," he finally said. "Humans have names, too, right?"

"Oh, right," Sotaro confirmed. "Yeah, I'm Sotaro. He's Kosaku and she's Mana."

"You know what happens in fairy tales when you give the monsters your name, right?" Kosaku asked, mostly just complaining because he didn't get to introduce himself.

"That's not how this works," Agathion said. "We can't make you stay because we know your names. That doesn't make any sense. That was made up by humans so kids wouldn't talk to strangers."

"See? There's no problem." Sotaro scratched his chin, adding, "You act like you know a lot about humans, Agathion."

"I do considering I want to be one." The casual way in which this Shadow stated this desire came as a shock to them. "What? You think I want to be pals out of the goodness in my heart? I want something in exchange for all the knowledge I'm dishing out, you know."

"Being human's not that great," Kosaku warned. "Just a whole lot of bullshit."

"Seems more fun being a Shadow," Mana agreed. "At least then the only people who bother you is...us."

"Yeah, don't count on that," Agathion said sternly. "It's like only ever getting to see those cheap knockoff versions of movies when you know there's a theater playing all the really cool stuff right down the street. Nothing ever happens here or changes or evolves. We're all just stuck here, able to feel the things going on on the other side but never being able to enjoy any of it for ourselves. Most just give up, even the ones who are smart enough to know what they're missing."

"But not you," Mana said.

"I figure if we all started out as a part of humans, there's got to be a way to make it work in reverse," he explained. "Hanging out with some humans is probably the best way to see if that's true. Whatever you're all hoping to find in here might give me some kind of clue about how to get what I want."

Ironically enough, Agathion's motivations already seemed pretty human to them. In essence, all he wanted was to find a place to belong where he could find a way to be who he wanted to be. Even Mana couldn't really mock him for that. It's something everyone grappled with at one point or another.

"Personally, I'm not against you joining us if that's what you're after," Sotaro said.

"Doesn't sound like you're trying to back stab us, so I'm on board," Kosaku seconded.

As the last unofficial vote, the final decision came down to her. "You can stay as long as you keep being useful," she said, making it unanimous. "Don't count on any of us to save your ass when we're in a fight. We've got enough to worry about on our own."

"I'm not tough, but I can handle myself," Agathion said. "I don't need a bunch of people who don't even know how to walk around this place protecting me." He'd soon get to put that statement to the test, as the path opened up into another square with the eleventh hour clock towering over them. Two of the horned horse Shadows and a tiny dancing demon were already on the attack.

Considering how weak they were, though, the group made short work of them. Surprisingly enough, it was Agathion that did the bulk of the work. Apparently wishing to prove himself, he conjured up a small bolt of lightning and struck the ground in front of the other Shadows. All of them appeared weak to it, jittering and falling to the ground after just that, easily blown away by the trio of Personas a moment later.

"Great work, team," Sotaro congratulated, high fiving Kosaku and predictably being left hanging by Mana. Given his arms were too tiny for it, Agathion also declined the gesture. As they celebrated, another door opened up to allow them safe passage back to their world.

"Guess we did what we needed to do," Kosaku said.

"Looks that way," Agathion concluded. "Guess I'll come find you guys when you're here next."

"You aren't coming with us?" Sotaro asked, feeling a bit concerned about leaving someone who admits to being weak in a dangerous place like this.

"Don't exactly have a body that can hang out where you live. Not in most places, at least." He waved off the concerned he could sense, adding, "I can handle myself until then. I've been doing it ever since he came out. Get back to school or job or whatever it is you people do."

"Not like we could do anything about it anyway," Mana added, already preparing to leave.

"Guess that's true," Kosaku said with a nod. "Either way, we'll be back in a day or two, so don't get yourself killed until then. Things would get a lot tougher if we didn't have you navigating for us. And it'd probably be a lot tougher to be a human if you're dead."

"Yeah, that's kind of a problem for us," Sotaro agreed. "Most people can't act all that human if they're dead."

"You don't have to joke around with me," Agathion said. "We're not friends. We're just working on the same team. When we get what we want out of each other, we'll go our own ways and we won't have to deal with each other again."

"Hey, I'm starting like you," Mana said before walking out the door. Both Kosaku and Sotaro followed shortly after, the latter feeling a bit disappointed at hearing their new teammate say those things. It would be a stretch to say any of them were friends, that much was true, but he didn't have to leave that out in the open like that.

Upon their return, they found themselves walking behind the shop as if they'd exited from the backdoor. Going around to the front, the owner was looking around like he'd just snapped out of a trance, frantically running from place to place inside the store as he realized all of the things that had gone wrong since he fell into a stupor.

"Guess our job here is done," Kosaku said, feeling quite proud of himself.

"Good work today," Sotaro told the both of them. "I'll let you know if I hear anything else. Until then, I guess we'll just head home." This was the end to a surprisingly successful day of exploring the other world, now correctly identified as Neirosoi. Kosaku gave the two a lift before returning to his own apartment. They could only hope every excursion going forward was this fruitful, though something told them it was probably just going to get harder from here.

* * *

Another new member of the party and another Social Link. If Mana had anything above the social skills of a slug, maybe she'd be at something beyond level 1 for everyone. Kind of makes Ueno dumping his backstory like that funnier in retrospect knowing they're demonstratively almost strangers still.

It's good to know Mana's standards are slightly higher than ten feet in the ground, at least. Pretty soon she'll be the defender of the weak throughout the school. Or just a stalker. Still not a good person.

Agathion here uses electricity instead of fire since we're mostly working on Persona 5 elements considering that's the newest game. Not the exact same element system as we'll soon find out, but close enough in many areas. That said, their party isn't half bad between one Physical/Light user, one Dark user, one Fire/Ranged user (we'll see that next chapter), and now a weak Electric user.

About all I've got for now. Thanks for reading. Share if you're enjoying. Always remember to wear pants in a restaurant unless it's a very specific kind of restaurant that allows you not to.


	7. In Over Their Heads

_The Redeemers choose to explore Neirosoi after completing their initial task to mixed results._

* * *

Since the timely arrival of Agathion and the proper forging of their team, the Redeemers had settled into something akin to a schedule for their activities in the dream world of Neirosoi. Three or four times each week, the human members would meet up after work and school hours to patrol the town for strange happenings, entering and meeting up with their Shadow ally upon finding something, then destroying whatever was causing things to go awry before returning home for dinner.

Despite what should be a risky and intimidating task, none of them were feeling all that challenged by what they came up against. A few close calls here and there were one thing, but it was quickly becoming apparent that the most powerful adversary the team had come up against to date was Kosaku himself.

It was starting to feel as if they were doing the equivalent of trying to fix a broken leg with bandages, each Shadow-based distortion they went up against fixing little more than a rundown patch of sidewalk or a person's mild depression as opposed to any major revelations on the cause of the coma incidents, the true nature of Neirosoi, or why certain areas of Nagaka allowed them to summon their Personas in the waking world. Even things on a personal level felt lacking, Mana in particular starting to regret the fact that she still barely knew anything about the people she risked life and limb with beyond names and a few interests. She hadn't seen Igor in a while but imagined he wouldn't be pleased by her failure, whatever that actually meant to her.

"Looks like we're done for the day," Sotaro said, cracking his shoulder as the remnants of a Shadow disintegrated into nothingness. "Should fix that stoplight up real nice."

"Good work today," Kosaku told them, beginning to sound like some kind of salaryman giving the usual platitudes to a group of coworkers before knocking off to drink away the monotony at a bar. It wasn't uncommon for at least one of them to end things like this, but the phrase was quickly losing all meaning or sincerity.

The both of them were about to head out through the door that had opened, but Mana stopped them. "Hold up," she said. "We're not done yet."

"We beat the Shadows, though," Sotaro said, quirking his brow. "Did we miss one?"

"Not that I can tell," Agathion confirmed. "No one else is hanging around here."

"Look, I get the feeling we're all kind of on the same page here," Mana said. "We've been at this for, like, a month now and we've accomplished jack shit."

"We've done plenty, though," Sotaro argued. "We're helping fix problems around town."

"And none of those problems involve waking people up from comas or getting that freak a human body," she shot back. "We're kind of just reacting to stuff that's already gone bad without even trying to fight stuff at the source."

She was speaking the truth, that much no one could deny. "So what do we do about that?" Kosaku asked, crossing his arms. "We don't exactly have a big spotlight to shine up in the sky to tell us when something's happening. We don't even know what kind of 'source' might be causing all of this stuff in the first place.?"

"We're not done here yet," she repeated. "Instead of going through the door, what if we just stayed here?" It was a simple idea that they'd all considered at one point or another, dismissing it out of hand for the simple fact that no one really wanted to be here for longer than they needed to. Even so, it was a bit shameful they hadn't done some exploring before now.

"What do you think?" Sotaro asked to Agathion. "What's actually here to find?"

"The thing about that is..." he began, trying to find a way to say what was about to come next without looking like a total coward. "Well, I haven't done all that much looking around myself. There's lots of bigger and badder Shadows than a little Agathion, so going it alone can be kind of a bad time if you're a free thinking cool guy like me. So I guess I...don't know."

"So much for being a navigator," Mana sneered.

"I still know more about this place than any of you," he said with a glare, hunching down into his jar.

"That makes sense," Sotaro said to try and defuse the tension. "Now that we're a team, though, I bet we probably could find something if we looked around."

"I'm in," Kosaku said. "Fact is, she's kind of right. Feels like we've been spinning our wheels doing a whole lot of nothing, so until there's a big signposted objective for us, this seems like our best option." This was essentially the end of the deliberation, everyone agreeing to at least some capacity that they needed to do _something_ if they wanted to make progress. Given that this was the only real option they'd managed to come up with so far, it would have to do.

Forgoing the inviting door to send them out of this nightmare, the team headed down one of the branching cobblestone paths they remembered a Shadow arriving from before the battle. The logic was that more Shadows meant more stuff – what kind of stuff was anyone's guess, though.

Kosaku left a trail of W&W's candy he'd been carrying with him to mark their path. It wasn't exactly reliable considering how small and extremely edible they were, but it was better than just hoping they could find their way back in case of an emergency. Sotaro made a note to find a better option for this sort of thing if they decided to try exploring again in the future.

Slowly but surely, things began to change around them. The somewhat urban trappings of Neirosoi they'd become familiar with fell away, buildings starting to thin out and decrease in height and withered, blackened trees sprouting up in random areas. The path itself became more and more sparse, as well, the cobblestones transitioning into a dark dirt road. Given the surrealistic look of everything around them, there was no mistaking that this was the same layer of reality, but it gave them some small hope that they'd actually hit upon a good idea by doing this.

"Mana, strike the ground for me," Kosaku said after their path turned to pure dirt, what looked to be another set of branching paths coming up just past a few boarded up Japanese-style houses along either side of the road.

Though she initially resisted out of habit, she stabbed the tip of her shovel into the dirt, pushing it in with her foot slightly to mark their place. She quickly pulled back, however, once a disturbing inky liquid bubbled up from the wound.

"That's not natural," Sotaro said, the group having turned to examine it.

"Is that shit just under the whole place?" Kosaku wondered.

Agathion tried his best to provide some insight but was ultimately just as lost as the rest of them in this situation. "I...guess. Maybe? One of you touch it to see what it does."

"No way!" Sotaro yelled.

"I'll buy you a drink if you taste it," Mana said right after.

"Absolutely not!"

"You scared?" Agathion mocked, turning up his nose smugly. "Just a little baby?"

"Guess you're not that brave after all," Mana sighed, shrugging.

Kosaku rolled his eyes, stopping all of this by saying, "Look, before somebody gets peer pressured into dying, let's just take some with us. Anyone got, like, a plastic bag or a container? I know a guy I could ask to take a look at it if we can get some out of here."

"What guy do you know?" Mana asked incredulously.

"Old buddy from back when I still went to college. Science guy now, so if anyone's going to know how to analyze a bunch of black goo, it's him."

They all began to search their bodies for anything that might be usable for the task, driving home just how unprepared they were for an expedition like this. With no other options presenting themselves, Mana decided to pull out her pack of cigarettes. Taking the last one and lightning it, she tossed the empty container to Kosaku. "Better than nothing," she said simply.

He debated the validity of this statement for a few moments before relenting. Managing to scrape a bit of the residue off the end of Mana's shovel without touching it with his hands, he closed the pack and placed it in a pocket on his jacket. "I'll see what I can do about this when we get out of here."

With that out of the way, they continued onward towards a more rural version of their familiar battleground, rundown buildings separating each of the five paths with a small, tarnished pagoda in the center replacing the usual clock. The stillness of it all wasn't that different from where they'd come from, though the sensation of being watched had changed greatly. Instead of the enormous buildings with the vague flashes of eyes coming from windows, the minimal architecture drew the focus away from buildings and out into the open almost like something was stalking them from just out of view.

They examined their surroundings for the next several minutes, inspecting the buildings to find that they were all locked up tight and too dark to see inside of when peaking through any gaps. While the ever-present sensation of being stalked remained, nothing seemed to be interested in making a move on them. It looked like they'd need to keep going.

Mana drew a large arrow in the dirt with her shovel to designate the path they'd chosen to take, cautiously moving even further away from the one exit they knew they had by taking the furthest road on the left. As they continued on, they managed to see small glimpses of the world beyond the buildings. Any feasible way to make it there was blocked by a building, a tree, or just some convenient obstacle that wasn't possible to traverse, but there was at least something out there past the designated paths they were walking. Even so, they were all in unspoken agreement that it was likely for the best that they couldn't reach these places given the subtly unnerving shuttering of reality itself just beyond where they could go, the air itself seeming to shake and jitter when looked at in a funny way.

They'd officially lost track of time once they made it to another open area, their phones somehow having gone out of synch and even showing entirely different dates both past and future. This only further forced them to question how long they'd actually been here, a conundrum quickly forgotten as a wave of shock passed through the team.

"Wait, hold on," Sotaro said, shaking his head in disbelief. "Is that…?"

"It's the arrow," Mana said, her voice low. Slowly walking over to the road, she confirmed that it was exactly the same as the one she'd drawn, now leading down an entirely different path to the immediate right of where they stood.

"Then...did we go backwards?" Kosaku asked. "Shadow, explain."

"How the hell am I supposed to know what's happening?" Agathion complained. "I've never been here. I don't know the rules."

"There are different rules to places here?" Mana said, her anger and confusion finding a new target. "You didn't think about mentioning that before?"

"I don't know!" he shouted. "This is all new to me. I didn't think we'd ever go out of the place I lived."

"You're useless," she said, trying to decide whether to head back the way they came or press onward.

Ever the voice of reason, Sotaro walked between them and held up his hands. "Let's just relax," he said. "We'll figure this out."

"Any ideas?" Kosaku asked, scratching his head in total befuddlement.

After a few moments of contemplation, Sotaro nodded his head. "Okay, here's what we do. We draw a different symbol for each path. We pick one, we go down it, then we see where we end up. If they're all there, we'll know we really did end up back where we started. If they're all shifted some way from where we started, we'll get an idea about what's happening here and should be able to figure out which way takes us back home."

They agreed to this, adding a star, three vertical lines, a circle, and a crude dolphin to mark each path, heading down the dolphin one to the left of where they'd emerged and following it as far as it would go. Predictably, they found their way back to the space once more with all of the same symbols intact and having shifted positions. They were now supposedly entering from the three lines, the arrow to their immediate left and the dolphin now at the top right.

Drawing in the dirt with his finger, Sotaro hummed to himself as he tried to retrace what they knew so far. "What did you figure out?" Mana asked, squatting down next to him.

"Okay, so...we went down the arrow first. After that, the arrow was in the opposite place it was before. Now we're here and the arrow is on our left. It's like things shifted two spaces clockwise."

"Damn, you figured that all out with just three go arounds?" Kosaku marveled. "Look at you being the top of your class."

"Well, middle of the top," he said a bit bashfully. "More importantly, I think I can figure out where we came from first." Gesturing towards a trio of diagrams he'd sketched out, he explained that they seemed to have originated from what they marked as the circle path to get here.

"And going back is going to get us somewhere that's not new and awful?" Agathion asked.

"If I'm right," he said. "Then again, who knows what this place could do next."

"Can't start doubting yourself now, bro," Kosaku said with a supportive slap on the back. "Let's just go and see what happens." An early sign of progress appeared when they found the shovel mark left in the ground a short ways down the path, the team continuing on in slightly uplifted spirits. Idle chat wasn't really their thing, so they all simply walked in silence with the hope that this would soon be over.

And yet, it was just beginning. With no signs of cobblestones even after a good amount of walking, they'd already begun to suspect something was wrong. Only when they came upon the same area once more did they understand the full scope of this, however. Now even their symbols had betrayed them, having shifted in an entirely different way from the other cycles, growing and shrinking randomly in size to barely resemble what was drawn before. Duplicates littered the ground around the pagoda, as well, as did all of Kosaku's candy trail.

"Damn it!" Mana swore, smacking her shovel against the ground. "You said this would work!" Having long since smoked the last of her cigarette, her nerves were more on edge than usual.

"I'm sorry!" Sotaro said, holding his head in his hands. "It was...the pattern...and the shovel mark...I don't..."

"This doesn't make any sense," Kosaku echoed. "We did it right, didn't we?"

"It's hopeless," Agathion said, dropping to the ground with a thud. "I never should have talked to you humans. Now I'm stuck here and I'm going to die a Shadow."

Their collective crisis was thankfully short lived, Mana's keen eye mid-rant alerting her to something else that had changed. Pausing from screaming at Sotaro, she approached the pagoda in the center of the square. "Hold on," she said to the group. "Did this...change?"

Squinting his eyes, Kosaku agreed. "Now that you mention it, yeah. It looks like it's...better, right?"

"Got a fresh coat of paint," Agathion added. "Did we not screw up after all?"

"Then I guess this is just a different test," Sotaro concluded. "Do we have to find something? Go down another path?"

"It's making my head hurt," Mana grumbled as she walked back to them. "Sorry for yelling at you," she said quietly.

"It's fine," he told her, putting a finger to his chin to come up with a solution. His brain worked overtime to try and find the key to solving things, drawing on years of experience playing puzzle games and watching detective anime every once in a while on TV. "It's got to be..." he began. His arm shot out, pointing towards one of the buildings. "That house!" he declared.

"Why that one?" Mana asked, already preparing to bash through the door if need be.

"It's a long shot, but if we assume we solved the first puzzle and we're currently standing on what used to be the circle path, that was the house next to the arrow path we took first."

"Why not just go down the path again?" Kosaku questioned. "Seems simpler."

"Like I said, I'm not 100% sure on this, but I don't want us to get lost again and lose our progress. The best I can come up with is the fact that it's the odd man out here." He pointed to the house before moving to the opposite side off the path it bordered. "See? There's a bunch of trees there. All the other paths have a boarded up building on each side of them, but that one has trees instead."

Mana nodded in agreement, saying, "I'll buy that for now."

"I think he's right," Agathion agreed. "Humans use pagodas to store texts and other important things, right? Well, that one's too small to hold much of anything, but if it got all spruced up when we got here, maybe it's the same general idea with the building."

"We might be jumping to conclusions on that one," Sotaro admitted, though he did walk to the pagoda himself to examine it more closely. Whether or not this part of their theory proved true, it couldn't hurt to take a small look at the genuine article to make sure they weren't passing up any kind of treasures. Unfortunately, they were not.

In the end, they resolved to find a way inside the shack, searching the front of the building and the small portion of the sides they were able to access before being obstructed by more trees. Seeing no obvious way in, they decided to take the direct option and, as Mana was quick to suggest, bash the door down.

"Hellhound!" Kosaku called, his Persona shooting a swirling energy attack into the locked door and blasting it off its hinges."

"Going to feel like a real asshole if we could have been doing that this whole time," Mana said as they approached the opening. Peering inside, it was still too dark to see what might be hidden within. "Who's going first?" Mana asked, smartly not wanting to be the first to jump inside a poorly lit house that was part of a bizarre mental trap in another world.

They didn't have time to answer before it found them. A wet snort hit the back of Mana's neck, sending a chill down her spine. Before she or any of the others had time to turn and face what had appeared behind them, a giant hoof managed to kick the four of them inside the building. Almost like there had been no floor at all, they fell into a deep darkness with no way out.

To call this darkness endless would be incorrect, however, a lesson they learned painfully after slamming into some rough, stony flooring (save for Agathion who managed to float just above the ground before impact). "Ah, damn it!" Kosaku yelled, rubbing his ass. "I landed on my keys!"

"More importantly, what pushed us down here?" Sotaro asked, looking around and trying to find a light source besides the dinky lighter Mana had already flicked. This didn't seem to be much of a problem, though, as the room around them quickly sprung to life, illuminating the large circular space around them and the gray stone walls that encircled them.

As the team collected themselves, Mana shoved Agathion in the air. "Didn't feel like warning us that someone was coming to get us?"

"I was distracted!" he said. "But, fine, here's a warning: That thing is still there and it's coming for our asses!" Right on queue, there was the beast, having leaped into the arena with its prey. It was like a minotaur of Greek myth standing upon the hooves of a bull, lower body draped in brown fur matted with blood and dried black liquid while its upper body remained exposed, blue skin covered in all manner of scars. As if it needed to drive home the message that it was dangerous any more than it already had, its bovine head was adorned in two massive horns both splitting off into several jagged directions, its nose almost resembling a skull just for good measure. And it had a gun.

"Then I guess we have to take this guy down if we want out," Kosaku deduced, Hellhound appearing behind him.

"About time we got to the point," Mana said. "I've been waiting to beat on whatever put us through all that nonsense."

The minotaur roared into the air, the room around them seeming to activate at the sound. The walls began spinning, transforming into overlapping images of different parts of Nagaka and Neirosoi. It was nearly impossible to make out the majority of them given how quickly they'd pass by, but at least a few of the images seemed to represent places like the school, the farm, Ueno's house, the fake street where they'd met Agathion, and Mana even managed to pick out what looked like the Velvet Room.

Getting distracted trying to identify every location being projected here was a poor choice, though, attention forced to the enemy as it went on the attack. It raised the chrome hand cannon towards the group clustered in front of it, firing off three shots that almost seemed to shake the room around them. Dangerous as they likely were, it was an easy task for Mu Guiying to deflect them away as her team members scattered.

This, at least in part, seemed to be an actual strategy on the part of the Shadow. Producing a net from its back, it tossed it over both Mana and Mu Guiying before she had the chance to move. Pulling her towards itself, it hefted her through the air with ease and smashed her into the ground behind it, then did the same thing again in the opposite direction.

The only protection she had from this was her Persona huddled around her, shielding her from some of the otherwise bone-breaking damage while still taking on a lot of pain in the process. With how trapped she was, swinging a sword to cut through the net wouldn't be an easy task, especially since her attacker seemed to be gearing up to toss her around some more.

Thankfully, the others weren't going to stand around and watch without doing anything. Electricity crackled against the side of the minotaur's face, not so much doing damage as irritating its left eye and causing it to break concentration. This was enough of a distraction to allow a fireball to rip through the segment of the net it was holding, freeing Mana and rendering the weapon useless in the process.

"Don't think we're just going to let you do what you want!" Kosaku shouted, Hellhound pouncing onto the minotaur's back and digging its claws in before taking a bite at its thick neck. Despite the yell the Shadow produced, the attack didn't seem to be accomplishing much given his Persona had to struggle just to keep itself from slipping off, unable to cling into the Shadow's flesh more than a tiny bit.

The struggle abruptly ceased when the minotaur charged backwards into the wall, breaking Hellhound in the process and sending Kosaku to his knees. To call this a blow to morale would be an understatement, the team's previously unstoppable ace now brought low in the first exchange against a new enemy.

"Over here!" Sotaro called, Merlin spinning its body like a top and launching its arms as projectiles directed at the minotaur. Each of its fists was packing a fiery punch that would hopefully do a bit more than just annoy the Shadow, but at the rate things were going nothing was guaranteed.

The first fist did little on account of being caught-mid air, crushed in the grip of the minotaur who seemed to be ignoring the fact it was currently on fire. The second, however, did manage to knock it back a few steps after making impact with its chin, though it was predictably still unharmed. This at least managed to force it to release its grip and return both hands to Merlin, Sotaro making a note not to risk that tactic again right now.

Mana, on the other hand, had no issue whatsoever getting up close to the Shadow, seemingly too blinded by rage after being smacked around like a ragdoll to realize charging in with a shovel and her Persona's sword would likely not end well. Mu Guiying's overhead slash was blocked by the minotaur's gun, Mana not even getting a chance to connect with her own weapon after her Persona was gored in the chest and stomach by the multiple spear-like horns on the beast's head. Just to add insult to injury, it even managed to get a shot off and strike Merlin in the side of the face when Sotaro attempted to help, knocking him to the floor.

Her Persona broken, Sotaro too stunned to assist, and Kosaku just now getting his second wind and standing back up, it seemed to be all over for Mana as she lay huddled on the ground. Raising a hoof, the minotaur was moments from crushing her into a chunky stain on the floor, stopping only when a small shock ran through its body. Despite the immense danger to his own person, Agathion had lunged into the Shadow covered in a barrier of electricity. As demonstrated before, it would likely do little in actually damaging the thing, but it would at least draw the focus off his most injured ally.

The minotaur turned on a dime, stomping its foot down on solid ground and grasping Agathion's entire body in its hand. Placing the barrel of its gun right up against the jar he'd fully retreated into, it would only take a second to pull the trigger and destroy the other Shadow for good.

All they needed was a second, though. In that short span of time, Kosaku put everything he had in summoning up a counterattack. At first, the three points of his pitchfork barely managing to scratch the surface of its hide and did little but alert the monster of presence, but this quickly change once Hellhound joined in. Straining and struggling with all his might in tandem with his Persona's brute strength, the duo managed to shove the weapon up into the Shadow's ribs, inflicting the first bit of real damage on the creature.

"You like that?" he shouted, Hellhound howling wildly as its master shoved and jerked on the pitchfork. The minotaur immediately tossed Agathion to the side, roaring in fury and aiming its gun down at the human that had actually managed to injure it. It fired three shoots directly at his head, two of them meeting the blade of Mu Guiying's sword and the final one penetrating the Persona's shoulder.

"Thought you were down for the count," Kosaku joked through straining teeth, doing his best to keep the pitchfork from slipping out of the minotaur's side or his own hands.

"This thing pissed me off," Mana panted, crouched on the ground with a look of fury burning in her eyes. "I'm killing it with my bare hands if I have to."

"Don't get greedy," he said, twisting his weapon in his hands while Hellhound jerked around to chomp into the vulnerable area of the minotaur's side for extra support. Off to the side, a fireball exploded against the minotaur's head, causing it to misfire and shoot the floor a good several feet from Mu Guiying.

"Sorry it took me so long to get back up," Sotaro said, jogging over to Mana's side and helping her up. "Look what Agathion can do, though." Moments after saying this, the Shadow spun in a circle over her head to shower her with green shimmers, restoring her energy and healing many of her injuries.

"You can thank me later but I do expect to be thanked," he said, making record time in moving to Kosaku to repeat the process. Mana didn't seem to have heard him though, screaming at the top of her lungs the moment she felt the power return to her body and having Mu Guiying stab into the minotaur's neck with its sword.

Putting all of that energy to good use, she managed to force the blade to break the skin, sliding it deep into the Shadow's body and out the other side under its arm. The minotaur shouted and shook, shooting Mu Guiying several times but doing little to knock the Persona away given Mana's own rage nearly blocking out the pain.

Only after pull the sword free of the Shadow did it finally topple over, Kosaku ripping the pitchfork from it as well just to avoid any death throes knocking him over. Standing in a semicircle, they watched with baited breath to see what would happen next. Through some miracle, it looked as if they'd won the battle.

"Guess it's over," Sotaro finally said to break the silence.

"If you tell us we did a good job, I'll punch you," Mana said, sighing heavily.

"At least it's dead," Agathion spat, contempt for the thing more than evident. "That should teach everyone that they shouldn't mess with us."

"Does word spread like that in here?" Kosaku asked.

"Sometimes," he replied. "I figure this guy was probably somebody, so it should for this."

"More importantly," Mana interrupted, "where's the door? How do we get out of this shitty hole?" The team had gotten so caught up in the relief of victory that they'd entirely forgotten their most pressing issue. Worse yet, once their search for some kind of exit along the still-spinning wall began, they also seemed to forget that the minotaur's body hadn't dissolved like a dead Shadow should.

"Nothing over here," Kosaku said as he examined a segment of wall, followed shortly by a yelp of panic.

"What happened?" Sotaro shouted, having an answer seconds later when he was knocked off his feet at the sudden appearance of a black human form emerging from the wall. Both Mana and Agathion backed up only moments before more of them emerged, the wailing facsimiles of people writhing from the wall. While most seemed content to simply reach out towards the people from halfway out of the stones, others fell to the ground, slithering along the floor and heading straight for the minotaur.

"Stop them!" Mana ordered, both her and Mu Guiying stabbing into as many as they could along the ground with the rest joining in shortly after. It was a fruitless task, though, as there were simply too many of them to contain.

As more and more of the creatures made it to the minotaur's body, the creature's body began to pulsate on the ground. Its skin also began to shift from blue to red, its whole form beginning to shake and jitter. Finally, its hand moved, wrapping its meaty fingers around the gun it had dropped and standing back up. Wounds healed, it let out a bellowing shout, firing several times into the air to signify its return.

It was time for round two.

* * *

Unfortunately, I'm still alive after the surgery, so now you get another chapter of this.

Got a comment recently about how short the battles were and this probably seems like a response to that. And it sort of is, but it's something I'd planned from the beginning. Mana and Kosaku are both pretty overpowered based on the still fairly early game point where the team has been so far, so it's no wonder their initial exploration has been so easy. Now they've actually found a boss and are wholly unprepared given they've coasted on raw power for too long.

I like comments like that, though. I said at the start I was hoping for people to tell me what to do so that this could more closely mirror the experience of playing a game with player input, so everyone is free to toss out ideas. Some I might have already thought of and others I might change course to include because they're better than whatever I've considered before which has the added bonus of meaning I can never pitch this idea to Atlus in the future since I'd get accused of plagiarizing from my audience.

This chapter also marks the first time we get a wholly new enemy to fight. The minotaur isn't exactly new to Persona or the SMT games (I even took the skull nose from SMT IV if you didn't notice), but it hasn't appeared in a Persona since 2 and I figured it was time for a remix, this time with more Gun.

We'll probably be seeing more puzzles coming along later, too. This one got a little Silent Hill at points but I doubt they'll all turn out quite as creepy. I don't know if it's just me, but anything that involves looping like that never sits right with me. Don't like that.

That's about all I've got for now. Thanks for reading. Share if you're enjoying. Always remember to buy delicious W&W's candy-coated chocolates, a product of the Jupiter brand.


	8. Breakdown

_The battle with the minotaur rages on._

* * *

Despite all their efforts to take down the Shadow the first time, the Redeemers were now face to face with an even stronger and angrier version of the minotaur. Though their wounds were healed, it was only a matter of time before Agathion was unable to work whatever magic he had that made that possible. This turned their fight into a battle of attrition they were almost assuredly going to lose. In simplest terms, they were boned.

Giving up wasn't exactly their style, though. If they went down, they'd go down screaming and filled with holes via gunfire. It was at least more dignified than curling up into a ball and crying despite how tempting that option was.

"Just thinking, maybe we don't touch the guys on the walls," Kosaku said as he psyched himself up for another go with the minotaur. "They don't seem too friendly."

"Wasn't planning on it," Sotaro replied, Merlin charging a fireball between its hands and letting it fly towards the enemy. As he'd learned several times over the last few minutes, that would most likely do little to cause damage. Even so, it provided some kind of distraction for the physically stronger members of the team to get in and hopefully replicate the miracle that defeated the beast before.

Unfortunately, the minotaur seemed to have learned this game since its resurrection, merely shooting a bullet through the fire to disperse it and narrowly miss the Persona's face. This stopped both Mana and Kosaku in their tracks as they attempted to flank the Shadow from the other side, their moment's hesitation the only reason they weren't killed outright by the next attack.

Pointing its gun straight at the ground, the minotaur fired several shots into the floor, pillars of rock erupting out from it in a semicircle from where it stood. Both Agathion and Sotaro were far enough away to be out of range, leaving their companions to barely make the timing to dodge out of the way.

"Since when could it do that?" Mana shouted, Mu Guiying appearing and unfolding its sword to nock an arrow of light.

"Maybe it took a class while it was dead, I don't know," Kosaku yelled back, Hellhound firing off a blast in time with the arrow, both attacks striking the minotaur in the face. Neither attack seemed to do much more than anger it, the Shadow giving a shout into the air before firing wildly in all directions.

While most of the bullets missed, the sheer number that was fired from the improbable weapon meant that at least a few hit. The three humans managed to defend with their Personas, dampening the blows to avoid being completely taken out of the fight. Agathion simply hid behind Sotaro given his uniquely vulnerable nature as a Shadow, a concession he repaid with a healing spell after the shots stopped.

"This isn't working!" Sotaro told them, ineffectually whipping a yo-yo around to smack the minotaur in the back of the head only to have it tangle in the mess of horns adorning the Shadow. "What did you do to stop it before?"

"I got real pissed and stabbed it!" Mana said, loosing arrows like mad with Mu Guiying to try and accomplish any small amount of damage.

"Same," Kosaku agreed, Hellhound taking the approach of whipping up clouds of dirt directed at the minotaur's face. If they couldn't hurt it, maybe they could at least blind it enough to knock it off balance.

"Got us a couple of master strategists," Agathion quipped mostly for the sake of hiding his terror. "Can't any of you do anything besides just shoot at it?"

There were about twelve different things the humans could think to say in response to this but, unanimously, they remained silent. This was because they legitimately did not think to try anything else. One of the consequences of avoiding such intense battles before this point was not needing to do much besides direct offense against enemies. Whether they were meant in jest or sincerely, Agathion's words had finally forced them to consider whether their Personas may possess some hidden talents below the surface.

Kosaku was the first to act. "Hellhound, do...something!" His Persona looked back at him, unsure of how to respond as a reflection of his own confused command. "I don't know. Make me stronger? So we can stab that thing again?" Any further negotiation would need to be put on hold given the massive boulder tossed towards them with the speed and precision of a professional baseball pitch.

Though Hellhound instinctively shot through the stone, the rubble was plentiful enough to still do damage. Knocking Kosaku backwards along the ground, he found himself grabbed from behind by several pairs of arms. "Hey, whoa, no!" he shouted, trying to find some angle to stab at the figures with his pitchfork while kicking his legs. "Do not want this!"

"Hold on!" Sotaro shouted, rushing closer and having Merlin send a blast of fire at the wall beside his ally. It might hurt, but it was preferable to whatever those other Shadows would end up doing to him. As luck would have it, this did accidentally reveal that Kosaku seemed to have some resistance to fire, breaking out of the last grasps of the monsters with only a bit of charring on his clothes and hair.

Sotaro found himself dropping at the knees immediately after as Agathion slammed into him from behind. Rough as it was, it was the only way to get him to duck in time to miss the three bullets aimed right for his head.

With the enemy preoccupied on the others, Mana took this opportunity to try and strike at the minotaur directly, Mu Guiying putting everything it had into an upward slash at the unguarded head and neck of the Shadow. A clean hit, it actually managed to leave a small wound along the path it traveled. To return the favor, the minotaur simply aimed its gun directly for the Persona's face, firing a single shot to break it and send Mana hurtling into the ground several feet back.

"I don't think this is working," Kosaku commented, his advance wobbly as his attempted a stab directly into the minotaur's stomach with his pitchfork, being batted aside like a gnat with the Shadow's free hand.

"I don't know how much heal juice I've got left in me," Agathion added, tending to Mana's wounds before another pillar of rock came up right in front of him, stopping his advance towards Kosaku.

With barely the mental strength to even stand, Mana still got to her feet. Vision was beginning to blur and she was finding it increasingly difficult to summon the willpower to call out her Persona. Even so, her residual anger pushed her forward. "Look, either you make me stronger or you make the enemy weaker," she told her Persona. Whether conversing with it was constructive or even possible wasn't so much her concern, desperation having driven her to trying anything for the sake of survival.

Even so, this seemed to be the push she needed on a subconscious level to use a new skill. Mu Guiying placed its sword sideways, swiping its hand over top before sending a small collection of blue kanji to encircle the minotaur. It was not immediately apparent what this accomplished, even the enemy seeming a bit confused as it idly swatted the characters around.

"The hell just happened?" Kosaku asked, rolling out of the way of rock thrown underhanded towards him, his exhaustion meaning he was still struck in the side and likely cracked a rib on it.

"We're going to die!" Agathion wailed, seemingly giving up on any further chance they had at winning this fight.

With that, Mana snapped. "Everything is useless!" she screamed, pulling her own hair in a fury and dropping her shovel. It wasn't often she had a meltdown like this – the last one, in fact, was the reason she ended up in Nagaka to begin with – but whenever she did, something was going to break. Whether it was an object, a person, or herself, that much was clear.

Literally blinded by rage and too upset to think clearly, she charged in without regard to her own safety to try and attack the minotaur. Weapon still on the ground where she'd left it, she evidently planned to do this barehanded like she promised before.

Strangely, however, her Persona seemed to be reflecting her rage. Rather than make her unable to focus and render it unusable, Mu Guiying had changed because of this. Both of them screamed in tandem, the Persona sounding like some kind of banshee as it charged forward with sword drawn. While the minotaur did manage to halt the stab with its gun, the strain was evidently enough to keep it locked in place.

"Take this!" Sotaro shouted, trying everything he could to capitalize on the situation. As usual, he shot another fireball at the Shadow's head, expecting it to at least break the beast's concentration so Mana's attack might go through.

The result was far better than he could have ever expect, though. Rather than simply annoy the minotaur, the fire's eruption caused it to yelp in pain, burn marks evident across its face once the smoke cleared. This provided more than enough of a distraction for Mu Guiying to redouble its efforts, stabbing the Shadow through the gut and continuing to charge until the two slammed into the wall ahead.

"That magic worked," Agathion said, almost stunned by the effectiveness of the skill. "She must have weakened it without even knowing."

"So we do have other options," Kosaku said, his confidence rekindling like the last embers of a fire being dumped into a box full of paper. "Don't let it go to waste! Give it everything you've got!" Hellhound braced itself against the ground, firing several blasts of dark energy at the minotaur as it was pinned against the wall, all of them striking true and with enough force to knock its gun from its hand.

"You heard him!" Sotaro shouted, both he and Agathion charging a fire and lightning combination to work the other side of the beast. Meanwhile, Mu Guiying continued to push its sword deeper into the struggling Shadow, screaming as it did and repeatedly butting heads with the monster while ignoring the desperate grapples of the humanoid figures attempting to reach it. For her part, Mana was furiously swinging away with her fists against whatever fleshy surface she could find.

A look of genuine fear began to form on the minotaur's beet red face. With its options gone, it seemed to realize it was only moments from death. Whether it was fully conscious of what this would mean for it as a Shadow or simply held some manner of self-preservation like all ostensibly living creatures couldn't be accurately determined, but it was satisfying on some level to see such a cruel enemy finally have to reap what it had sown.

With one last scream, Mu Guiying drove the blade in further, then abruptly sliced upward through both the minotaur and the wall it was trapped against. Heaving the blade clean through its head, the Persona disappeared just seconds later as another volley of projectiles hit the enemy. This was the last they'd ever see of this enemy, its body finally disappearing as it should have before, its death setting the groping figures lining the walls alight and burning them to cinders.

While not a clean victory, it was a victory all the same. Though Mana collapsed almost immediately after her Persona fell away, the others froze where they were just to be completely sure this was the end. After several tense seconds of waiting, they ran to her side to make sure she didn't sacrifice herself for the sake of their win.

Thankfully, she was only unconscious, Agathion using up the last of his magic to heal the wounds they'd all accumulated to the best of his ability. "I'm tapped out," he said, falling to the ground with a thunk. "Carry me."

With a sigh, Kosaku elected himself for the task, grunting as he pulled up the Shadow into his arms. "God damn, you're a lot heavier than you look."

"I carry my weight mostly in my jar," he said, voice echoing from where he'd slumped down inside.

"Yeah, I figured." He hiked up the jar and waddled around to try and see if the walls had changed at all. "Now what happens?" he asked to Sotaro.

"I don't know," he replied, pulling Mana onto his back to carry her wherever they ended up. Exhausted as he may be, he had to admit he was at least a bit satisfied knowing this would be the second time he'd carry her to safety. Probably something to hold over her once they were out of here.

"These walls just keep spinning," Kosaku grumbled, kicking it once he was close enough to express his anger. Almost floored by what happened next, the wall seemed to respond to this, the images slowly beginning to stop in front of him, overlaying one after the other before the image of a shrine presented itself. "Did I win?"

The image began to appear more solid by the second, Agathion poking his head out to observe. Then, in a single flash of light, the group was transported to what seemed to be the shrine it pictured. It was certainly in enough disrepair to match, red paint all but gone after years of neglect and most of the wood that made up the structure splintered or actively rotting.

"Are we back home?" Sotaro asked, setting Mana down against the sturdiest looking wall as he came to Kosaku's side.

"I...think?" he said, obviously unsure. "Wait, why is he here?" Despite being in what looked to be Nagaka, Agathion wasn't left behind in the jump back.

"Who knows?" the Shadow said, resting limply on the rim of his jar. "You have those places where your Personas can come out, right? Maybe this is like that." While that did raise some serious and potentially dangerous questions as to whether Shadows might be able to autonomously cross over into their reality, it did seem like the most immediately plausible answer.

"Whatever," he conceded, running his hands through his hair with a sigh. "I'm a farmer. I don't need to be doing all this thinking." Taking a cigarette out of his own pack, he lit it and took a deep drag. "Anyone want to split the last of this shit with me?" he said, shaking about a quarter of a bag of his candies, many of them having been crushed during the fight.

Sotaro declined while Agathion gladly devoured half the bag (including the bag itself) as they tried to decompress from the fight. None of them were feeling too talkative at the moment, simply waiting for Mana to awaken as a gentle snowfall started to come down. Spring or not, it was still Hokkaido.

Given their phones were still screwed up, they couldn't do much in the way of accurate timekeeping right now. Their best guess was that it felt like an hour or so before Mana woke up, though it was likely a good while longer than that. As soon as her eyes fluttered open, she clutched her knees to her chest in a panic.

"You're finally up," Sotaro said, trying to sound as non-threatening as possible seeing her obvious distress. "We made it, see? We're even back in town."

Though this seemed to calm her down a bit, she was still far from her usual volatile self. "Does anyone have a cigarette?" she asked quietly. "I...I need one. Does...anyone..."

"Yeah, sure," Kosaku said, pulling another out for himself and tossing a second to her. She scrambled to grab it off the ground, lighting it as quickly as possible and puffing on it like a diver desperate for the last molecules of oxygen left in the tank.

"Are you okay?" Sotaro asked her. "Do you need anything?" In lieu of a response, she just stared back at him, eyes bugged out as she finished her cigarette in record time.

Snuffing out the end, Mana closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. Remaining still for several seconds after, she opened her eyes again. "I'm fine," she said, her normal hostility returning as if she hadn't been a complete wreck just moments later.

"That's a relief," he replied. While she was obviously not fine, she seemed to at least be doing better than before. Probably as best as any of them could be expected to behave after what they'd just faced. It was hard to even believe they'd come so close to dying even with the battle still so fresh in their memories.

"I guess we should talk about what happened," Sotaro suggested, trying to move them into a conversation. He had no idea what to expect anyone to say about it, but anything seemed preferable to silence right now. Even if they just started yelling at him for trying to bring it up, that would be fine.

Perhaps the biggest shock of all happened then, Mana uttering the words, "I'm sorry," clearly and concisely. All three looked to her in shock, forcing her to repeat it. "I'm sorry. It was my idea. I was wrong. We're never doing this again."

"Yeah, we probably jumped into exploring without much thinking," Kosaku agreed. "We shouldn't-"

"Never again," Mana said. "We're never going back again."

"Wait, hold on," he said.

"What are you trying to say?" Sotaro asked.

"We can't handle that again," she said. "We shouldn't have gotten involved. We're not doing anything but putting ourselves at risk."

"But we...we beat it," Sotaro said, placing a hand on his head in confusion. "We won, right? We're all fine."

"No one is fine," Kosaku told him honestly. "Yeah, we got out of there, but that...isn't something we just walk off." Sotaro turned to him almost looking betrayed, though he didn't back down. "We almost died. I get how she's feeling." Agathion seemed to understand this, too, retreating back into his jar and not speaking a word.

"So...what are you all saying?" he finally asked. "Are you...just going to quit?"

Kosaku sighed in response, Agathion popping back out and beginning to float. "Wait, no one's quitting," he said. "You idiots promised you'd help me become a human. You're not just going to quit on me."

"That's how it has to be," Mana said, straining to get to her feet before starting out the open exit to the shrine.

Though it took a moment for him to react, Sotaro ran after her followed closely by Kosaku, Agathion too dumbfounded at the betrayal to make a move. "Hey, hold on!" Sotaro yelled. "You can't just leave like that! We've got a job to do!"

Turning around, she pointed a finger at him and said, "No, we don't. Not anymore."

"Then what was the point of any of this?" he said, throwing his hands in the air. "Was it just some kind of game that's not fun anymore?"

"I don't know," she said, her obviously pained expression doing little to hide the conflict inside her. "We can't do this again."

"I can," he said defiantly. "I can't just give up after all of this. We're close to making some kind of breakthrough."

"How the hell do you know that?" Mana asked. "All we did was wander into a trap and almost get killed. There's no reason for us to ever go back after that."

"Agathion is the reason if the comas aren't good enough," he said. "We can't let our friend down."

"Friend?" she scoffed. "None of us are friends. We don't know anything about each other. We've just been too full of ourselves to care about anything but busting Shadow ass and seeming like big heroes for fixing a traffic light."

He tried to come up with an argument but was forced to admit that he couldn't really phrase anything to counter what Mana had said. It was undeniably true that their alliance was formed more out of convenience than much of anything else, none of them having really taken the time to get to know the others in anything more than superficial terms.

Still, Sotaro wanted to believe there was something more, or at least could be. He wanted to believe that he wasn't the only one who felt affection for his teammates, who cared for their well-being even beyond the confines of a fight. That, if nothing else, he wanted to be able to try and keep his promise to Agathion no matter how unlikely it seemed that it could really be done.

He turned to Kosaku for support but found that even he was starting to have doubts. "Seriously?" he asked, the snow beginning to pile up around them. "You're all just going to quit?"

"I mean..." Kosaku sighed heavily, scratching his head. "Look, we knew from the start that he probably couldn't be a human, but we wanted information. And if Mana's just going to ditch us, it's like...I don't know if we could survive another fight like that with just three of us. And it's like I said earlier; I'm just a farmer, dude. I don't know what's even happening half the time. And you're a high school kid. We shouldn't be dying in some pit in another world like that."

Defeated, Sotaro looked to the ground. Mustering up the last of his courage, he gave one final plea. "We can make this work," he said. "I can't force you to stay, but...please, we can't just end it like this. We'll prepare better and fight smarter." He looked to Mana then to Kosaku, desperation evident in his eyes. "We can do some good. We can help people."

Mana turned and left once he stopped talking, Kosaku staying just long enough to say, "Sorry. I've got to go find my truck." Sotaro stood in place as he watched the two of them make the trek back to town, only now realizing that they were situated on the outskirts. The walk back would be rough for all of them.

Returning to the shrine, he encountered Agathion hovering just at the entrance, that being where the influence that allowed him to be on this side ended. After a short pause, he came out with it. "They're gone," he said.

Sadness welling in the Shadow's beady eyes, he immediately followed it with, "But I'm still here. I need to go home now, but I'll be back tomorrow. We'll...we'll figure something out." He turned to leave, the pain and exhaustion beginning to take its toll as the adrenaline finally subsided. "We will. I promise."

Elsewhere, Mana made it back to Ueno's house, walking in through the door and kicking her shoes off. "Oh, welcome home," the man said from the other room, brow furrowing at just how disheveled and tired she looked after catching a glimpse of her passing by. "Did something happen at school? You weren't in a fight, right?"

She ignored him, climbing the stairs with great effort and plodding along into her room. Slamming the door behind her, she barely made it into bed before collapsing. Rolling herself up in the sheets, she hugged a pillow to her chest and let out a series of low, alien gurgles with her face pressed against it. She didn't know how else to vocalize what she was feeling right now, only knowing that it was bad and it needed to get out.

* * *

It's Pride and I'm having trouble getting something else to turn out the way I want it to so here's another chapter out of nowhere. Instead of wondering if the gang is going to survive (they would since wiping the party this early on would be kind of a problem), you get to wonder if they'll ever meet again. Much better.

I think this fight really reflects how a lot of people who play Persona or any RPG first awaken to the idea of buff and debuff techniques. The initial, "I'm about to die and I haven't saved in three hours," going to, "What do these things that don't do damage do?" to, "How many of these do I need to stack before I sweep everything I come across in one hit?"

Turns out the minotaur uses Earth skills. Haven't seen those for a bit. I'm not even particularly fond of the Persona 2 games but keep unintentionally making references to them in stuff I write. Not sure how that's possible, either, since it's been forever since I even looked towards one of them in a serious manner, let alone played one. Either way, expect to see more Shadows with that element and a few more to round out the skill table.

I was considering music when all of this first began and I'm no closer to thinking of an answer to that question, but I did figure something out. That is: In the mediocre-at-best animated adaption, the ending theme should be MONDO GROSSO's LIFE feat. FACE ( M.G 2.7 Stepped Mix - Single Edit ) (you have to specify all that since there's about four or five versions of the song). I prefer the feel that version has over the others for this story and the fact it's translated into English keeps with Persona theming. Now, this isn't relevant at all and almost inappropriate given it's such an upbeat song and this chapter has such a dower ending, but it might be more appropriate in the future.

That ending, though. I can't exactly begrudge the decision to walk away after all of that, but it's still not great to leave Sotaro and Agathion behind. That boy is the voice of reason specifically because Mana has no sense whatsoever. If she's gone, he'll have to start making his own brain cell deficit so things don't feel weird. That need to help others is going to get him in trouble one of these days.

That's about all I've got for now. Thanks for reading. Share if you're enjoying. Always remember to conserve SP.


	9. Friends

_The Redeemers must reunite to save a reckless Sotaro._

* * *

The aftermath of the battle had taken its toll on Mana. While it was fortunate that they chose to embark on their quest just prior to the weekend, she was still covered in bruises and drained of energy by Monday morning. Barely managing to dodge around Ueno and his many questions on why she stayed home and what had happened to her, she tried to return to school and establish some new sense of normalcy to her daily routine now that much of her time wouldn't be occupied by the other world.

Immediately, though, this proved impossible. As soon as she reached school grounds, she could tell that there was something going on. "Did you talk to his mom?" she heard one boy whisper in the corner to a group of other students.

"No, but I heard the police are involved," another responded, Mana sensing eyes dart towards her as she passed by. For once she was actually at a loss as to why that might be. Sure, police getting involved when she was around wasn't exactly a new thing, but she'd done pretty well in staying out of trouble for a while now (at least in Nagaka).

Her questions would soon be answered as Hoshiko approached her at her locker looking uncharacteristically nervous. Apparently, she did feel something besides peppy after all. "Excuse me, Tatsugami-san," she said after getting her attention. "I don't want to bother you, but could I ask you a question?"

Mana waited a moment before replying, closing the door to her locker and leaning against it. "What?" she asked dryly.

"I was just wondering if you've heard from Sotaro-kun in the last few days," she asked, shifting back and forth nervously.

"You two are friends?" she asked. Considering his reputation as a general good guy around town, it wasn't all that surprising.

"We've known each other since middle school," she explained, obviously the least important topic of conversation at the moment. "Like I was saying, though, have you heard from him recently?"

"No," she replied. "You can't just text him for yourself?"

"I've tried," she said. "He's not answering to anyone. His parents say he left home on Saturday and he never came back. Everyone's really worried since he never does anything like this." Pulling back slightly, she held up her hands. "I'm not accusing you of anything, obviously! I just know you've been talking to each other a lot lately. I thought maybe you might have heard something."

Mana was already putting the pieces together. "I don't know where he is," she answered mostly honestly, neglecting to mention her hunch that he might be in another reality at the moment. "If I find anything, I'll tell you. That work for you?"

"Thank you!" she said, sincerely bowing to show her appreciation. "I'm sure we'll find him soon! Oh, but...is everything okay? You look really tired."

"Rough night," she said, taking out her phone and attempting to text Sotaro to see for herself whether or not he would answer.

"I hope I'm not worrying you with all of this," Hoshiko stammered. "Like I said, I'm sure he'll turn up soon. Make sure you get enough sleep and eat properly. I know he wouldn't want you losing your health over him like this."

Thankfully, she left after that, making the rounds to ask others for information. While Mana's instincts told her to rush off to save Sotaro, she held herself back. As much as she'd insult and chide him, he was a fairly capable guy. She just couldn't picture him charging into Neirosoi without at least some kind of plan, especially now that she wasn't there to make all the bad decisions for him.

While she tried her best to get through school without issue, her worry only grew. Even though no teachers or faculty brought up the disappearance in front of the students, it was plain to see that they were all aware of it. Any free time between lessons was inevitably dominated by talk of Sotaro, as well.

Miraculously, she made it through the day, leaving school in a hurry and not looking back. Checking her phone, she still hadn't received a reply for her earlier message or the extra one she sent around lunchtime. This only served to make it more difficult to ignore the situation, inevitably leading her down the road towards the old couple's farm.

Without a vehicle for transportation, it took her a good minute to actually make it out that far. While it would normally be a doable if annoying task, all that walking managed to irritate her injuries and put her in a worse mood than normal. Even so, she pressed on until the place came into view.

Strolling up to the front gate, she found the only other person she knew who might be able to ease her fears situated under a brown truck that was in alarmingly better condition than his own. Approaching the vehicle, she could hear him mumbling something to himself over the sound of tools and Taeko Ohnuki's 4:00 AM playing from the phone in his pocket.

To get his attention, Mana kicked the bumper on the truck, causing him to jolt up and hit his head against the underside. "You better not have just knocked your ass out," she said, rolling her eyes.

"What, no, what?" Kosaku rolled out from under the truck, standing up and dusting himself off. "Oh, it's you. Going to be honest here, didn't think we'd ever actually see each other again."

"Yeah, I'm not here just to catch up," she said. "Have you heard from Sotaro at all?"

This seemed to confuse him. "I mean, no. We kind of raw dogged him real bad the other day. Are you mad he's not talking to you at school, or something?"

"He disappeared," Mana told him, getting straight to the point. "No one's seen him for about three days. Did he contact you at all?"

"No," he replied, pulling out his phone to check his messages. "What happened?"

"No idea," she said, shaking her head. "Apparently he just left and never came home. He's not answering his phone, no one's seen him, and he didn't show up for school. I even texted him to say I got stabbed and he needed to help me get home, but he didn't respond."

"I'm going to assume that was a lie and move on," Kosaku said, cracking his shoulder before grabbing his leather jacket out of the bed of the truck. "We both know where he is, right?"

"Neirosoi," Mana stated, her tone making it clear she wasn't happy about this development.

"Needed to give my boss' truck a test drive after tuning things up, anyway. Get in." He opened the driver's side door and hopped inside. "He probably went to that shrine where we left Agathion."

Mana nodded as she buckled herself in on the other side. "Maybe we'll get lucky and he just fell in a hole somewhere nearby. That place looked pretty shitty. The floor could fall out at any moment."

"Yeah, don't count on that," he said, then turned his head to look at her. "Are you going to be okay going back there?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked, furrowing her brow.

"I get it. You're afraid. Anyone would be after all of that."

"I'm not afraid of anything," she said defiantly.

"I sure am," he told her. "We almost died. It's normal to be scared of that."

"I'm not afraid," she repeated. "Drive already and stop wasting time."

Kosaku remained still for a moment, then sighed and did as she said. "It's okay if you want to wait outside," he added. "All I've got to do is run in and grab him. Easy." Mana didn't reply. "Alright, then. Just ignore me. It's a short drive."

They sat in silence the rest of the way there, the tension between them growing the longer things continued like this. There didn't seem to be any chance of resolving it unless Mana admitted to her denial, either, her preoccupation with seeming strong and in control making it impossible for them to even have idle chat at this point, let alone talk strategy. This also meant they had no real plan of attack as they pulled up to the shrine, though that was hardly news.

"Let's stick together," Kosaku told her as they hopped out of the truck. "If we get split up, that just means more of us might get lost."

"Whatever," she sighed, heading for the shrine entrance and looking around. Nothing much seemed to have changed since the other day save for several wet patches from where snow had fallen through cracks in the architecture and subsequently melted. "Hey! You here?"

While neither Mana nor Kosaku expected that to work, something did make a sound in response to her screaming. It was the faint but unmistakable creak of floorboards shifting under someone's weight. "Someone's here," Mana whispered as they both turned towards the direction of the noise.

She pointed off to her right like she'd seen a soldier do in a movie once, Kosaku thankfully getting the message to creep into the shadows and prepare in case whoever was hiding from them turned out to be dangerous. "You've got one chance to come out here," she said after that. "I'll count to three."

Mana hadn't even begun the countdown before their intruder (was it really intruding if this place was abandoned?) came out into the open. "I'm sorry," she said, voice low and a bit raspy as the tall figure shuffled her way out from behind a cracked support pillar. Though she certainly wasn't Sotaro, neither of them recognized the person before them, long black hair even obscuring most of her face as she seemed to be trying to minimize herself as much as possible.

"Who are you?" Mana asked, looking her up and down to see if she appeared to be a threat. All signs pointed to no what with her hunched over, almost quivering posture and the way she held her arms over her chest, but one could never be too sure. At the very least, the dark bag or purse on her shoulder was enough to give her pause given the potential to hide a weapon.

"No one," she replied, seemingly detecting that that wasn't a very satisfying answer. "We haven't met," she tried again, finally settling on, "Ayano."

"Why are you here?" she asked right after, still ready for a fight.

"I just...come here to be alone sometimes," she said, tugging at the sleeve of her brown turtleneck sweater. "No one ever comes here. It's quiet."

Mana paused for a moment to consider what she knew so far. Nothing Ayano had said sounded all that far fetched or strange. With a town like this, it wasn't exactly a revolutionary idea that someone around her age might want to go exploring somewhere just to escape the boredom. This did seem to be public land, too, so it wasn't like she was trespassing. Even if she were, they weren't about to go running to the police about it.

"How long were you standing there?" she asked, hoping this might lead to some new information regarding the whereabouts of Sotaro.

"About half of an hour," she said, seeming almost embarrassed by this. "I lost track of time. Then I heard a car come and...hid."

"Someone out here looking for you?" she questioned, still pushing an angle of suspicion.

"No, I just..."

"Alright, that's enough," Kosaku said, stepping out from where he was hiding. "She's fine."

"Nice job blowing your cover," Mana told him sarcastically.

"She's not going to do anything to us," he said while approaching her. "And we're not going to hurt you," he said to Ayano, noticing her growing look of concern. Understandable given she was surrounded by a pair of shady characters in the middle of nowhere.

"Don't make promises you can't keep," Mana shot back, immediately being shoved for that.

"Like I said, we're not going to hurt you," he repeated. "We're just here looking for someone. Someone who isn't you, but maybe you've seen him." He reached for his phone before realizing he had no pictures to actually show. "Well, I think he's about your age. Red hair, dark skin, probably wearing blue school gear, might be swinging a yo-yo. Generally...friend-shaped, I guess."

Ayano perked up at this description. "I saw him," she said, stepping forward a bit. "He was here the other day."

"Did you hide from him, too?" Mana asked sarcastically, receiving a nod in response.

"I heard him talking to someone but I never got a chance to see who it was because I hid. Then they left somewhere."

"Do you have any idea where they went?" Kosaku asked urgently.

Ayano shook her head. "I don't. Sorry. They were talking and then suddenly stopped. I looked and they were just gone." She almost seemed genuinely upset that she couldn't be of more use to them, pink-painted lips puckered into a frown.

"Show us where they last were," Mana demanded. She figured if they knew at what point Sotaro and, presumably, Agathion disappeared, they might be able to enter Neirosoi from the same place they had.

"I'll try to remember," she said, stepping gently through the shrine's messed up floor to avoid various bits of debris scattered around. Though it was hardly the most pressing issue at hand, Mana couldn't help but notice the pleasing way her ankle-length white skirt swished side to side as she moved so fluidly, especially compared to herself and Kosaku lumbering through without a care like a pair of ogres.

Deeper into the shrine, they found a faded pagoda not unlike the one from the other world, Mana and Kosaku sharing a look upon first spotting it. "I think it was around here," Ayano confirmed to them. "They walked this direction and were talking, then they went silent. When I looked for them, they weren't there anymore."

"Can you remember what you heard them talking about?" Kosaku asked as Mana went to inspect the pagoda.

"Not really," she admitted, slipping her bag off her shoulder and wringing the handles between her hands. "They weren't talking very loud and I was afraid of being seen. Something about shadows or-"

A flash of light emitted from the pagoda, Mana having decided rather quickly to start poking at it without really thinking things through. When the light subsided, all three of them were now in the rural area of Neirosoi from the last time, seemingly transported there via the pagodas.

"Guess we figured out how they got here," Mana said, looking around for any signs of life before her head snapped around towards Ayano. "Ah, shit."

"Uh, stay calm," Kosaku said, trying his best to keep Ayano from panicking in this dangerous and unfamiliar environment. "We can explain, so just bear with us for a minute while we figure some stuff out."

She wasn't listening at all, looking every which way as she took in the sights of Neirosoi. "This place..." she murmured.

"Yeah, it's freaky," Mana said, slapping the pagoda a few times to try and return them home to no avail. "Looks like that was a one-way trip, too. Just stay behind us and you'll be fine."

"Right," Kosaku nodded, managing to pick up on the lack of confidence that came with Mana's statement. It was clear she didn't have much faith in herself to protect anyone after the minotaur, not to mention how they'd accidentally left their weapons in the truck.

"I'll be fine," Ayano said, stunning the both of them with her boldness. "We should find your friend. Maybe he knows how to get home." They couldn't really argue with that nor could they simply leave her there to fend for herself. Looks like they had a third member of this shabby party for the time being.

With that, they set off down the path straight from the pagoda. Assuming this place wasn't going to play more tricks on them, this should head straight to the area they were more familiar with, hoping that Sotaro would have started whatever it was he was hoping to accomplish in here by returning to familiar ground. If not, they'd have no hope of finding him given he hadn't left a trace of himself back where they arrived.

The tension from before returned soon after with a vengeance, the new trio feeling even more awkward in the silence than in any other configuration of the group. Surprisingly, it was Mana who tried to break the ice this time, coughing a few times before saying, "Hey, you're my age, right?"

Ayano blinked a few times, caught off guard by how sudden this was. "I think so. Maybe. I just turned 18."

She nodded, looking to Kosaku and saying, "Don't try anything."

"What the hell?" he shouted. "I'm not some weird pervert creeping on high schoolers! We're here because we're on business!"

"I'm just saying," she said, turning back to Ayano to ask, "So if you are, why haven't I seen you at school?" To an outsider, this probably sounded strange, but Mana's suspicious and generally distrustful nature had picked up on something. In total, there was only about 50 students that attended her high school, the entire third year separated into only two classes. It would be strange for her to have at least never seen Ayano in the halls if they were in the same grade.

"Home schooled," Ayano mumbled, apparently feeling uncomfortable with this line of questioning.

"Sounds pretty nice," she said. "Teachers suck here. Especially that Morikawa dude."

This actually got a small smile out of her. "I've seen him around town," she said quietly. "He seems really full of himself."

"That's pretty amazing how people who don't even know him can tell he's a dick," Mana said with a grin. "Always riding my ass about something because he's got it out for me. Sometimes I wonder if he'll ever get so angry those buttons on his shirt finally pop."

In lieu of a laugh, Ayano made a strange snorting sound, in turn forcing a laugh out of Mana. "If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were actually trying to be social," Kosaku said over his shoulder. He'd never seen Mana acting pleasant before and was both happy and a bit afraid at the prospect.

"You want me to just walk in silence?" she asked gruffly, glaring holes into his back.

"I mean, if you're going to be this friendly, talk away."

This put Mana in a difficult situation. She certainly didn't want to do anything that would give the impression she cared what someone else thought, especially not if it meant doing what they wanted her to do. However, she also wanted to keep talking to Ayano since she seemed kind of cool for someone who regularly hangs out at abandoned buildings, leaving her with no choice but to kick him in the heel and continue her conversation.

"Don't pay any attention to him," she said, Kosaku hopping forward to avoid falling on his face after the kick. "He's just some dude."

"Yeah, I'm some dude," he grumbled. "Named Kosaku if you were wondering."

"I'm Mana," she said after, realizing they hadn't actually introduced themselves at any point before.

"Ayano. But you knew that already. Sorry."

"You don't have to apologize for everything," she told her. "You keep saying that. Honestly, we should be apologizing for dragging you in here."

"You mean for _you_ dragging her in here, right?" Kosaku commented. "You touched the thing."

She groaned loudly, adding a reluctant, "Yes, I'm very sorry." As they entered the urban area of Neirosoi, she turned back to Ayano to say, "Like I said before, it's going to be fine. Nothing's going to happen to you." It almost sounded like she meant it this time.

"Hey, I think I found something," Kosaku called back to them, bending down to pick up a singed end of a length of twine. He tugged at it, feeling some resistance on the other side. "Pretty sure the Shadows didn't leave this here."

"It seems like something he'd do," Mana agreed. "Still, what happened here? He wouldn't just leave it laying somewhere. He'd tie it off." She prodded the end. "And it's burned."

"Think he's been fighting something?" he asked.

"Looks that way," she said, already following the string down its length. "He might be hurt. Let's hurry." They picked up the pace, tracing Sotaro's steps around corners and through an alley before finding the end of the twine tied off at a clock in a nearby square.

"Either he ran out here or he didn't have enough time to start up a new one," Kosaku conjectured.

"Probably the second option," Mana said, pointing to the various burn marks along the cobblestones. "He's been busy."

Kosaku shook his head. "What the hell was he trying to do here? Did he just come looking for a fight?"

"Not his style, but who knows anymore?" The thought worried them, that worry growing stronger at the sound of an explosion happened to occur not that far off. "Looks like we found him." Mana turned back to Ayano, hoping to reassure her before they charged into danger. "Let us handle what's about to happen. When stuff goes down, just stay out of sight."

She nodded a bit hesitantly, evidently unsure of what this was supposed to mean. Still, her confidence didn't seem to waver, taking all of this in a surprising amount of stride.

"He's been at this for days, so I doubt he's got much left in him," Kosaku said as they ran towards the sounds of battle. "He might be hurt." The thought spurred them on quicker, Ayano struggling to keep up as they broke into a run.

Turning a corner, they found Sotaro slumped against a wall, clothes a mess, blood running down the side of his face, and his hand clutching a nasty hole in his stomach. "Damn it!" Mana shouted, sprinting over to him as fast as she could. "Hey! Don't you die on me here!"

Sotaro blinked a few times before lazily rolling his head over to look at her. "Oh. Hey."

"What were you thinking?" Kosaku asked as he came up beside Mana, crouching down to try and get a better look at his wounds.

"Guess I got tired of thinking," he laughed, coughing immediately after from the strain.

"Stop trying to be funny," Mana ordered. "Where Agathion? Why isn't he healing you?" It was exactly as she'd feared. She was at fault here for getting him involved in the first place. Now he'd die right in front of her, none of them able to do a thing about it.

"Help him," Sotaro pleaded. "He's holding them off, but his attacks can't do much."

"Right, sure, but we need to help you first," Kosaku told him. "Shit, I knew I should have grabbed some bandages at the farm."

Ayano maneuvered around Kosaku, sticking her hand out to gently move him aside. "I think I can help," she said, blue fire lighting itself along her left hand and wrist. "Ceridwen, I need you," she whispered, a ghostly figure materializing beside her.

"You've got a Persona?" Mana exclaimed. She hadn't even considered the possibility the entire time they were together.

"Is that what you call it?" she asked. "I never knew. I guess so, though." It was an impressive one at that. A mint-skinned, statuesque sorceress with wild orange hair dressed in forest green robes floated a bit behind its user, upper and lower body separated at the midsection by a black, bubbling cauldron decorated with hexagrams floating between them. It looked down its pointed nose at Sotaro on the ground, instinctively reading Ayano's thoughts and knowing what to do.

Cupping both hands, it reached into the cauldron and splashed a large volume of emerald liquid down on him. It absorbed into his body within seconds of contact, seemingly drawing the lost blood back into his wounds as they closed and leaving nothing but a few sparkles behind.

A few seconds later and Sotaro sprung up from the ground. "Holy...wow!" He looked to each of them, clenching his fists. "Wow, I feel...I feel great! Like, even better than before! Thanks a lot, whoever you are!"

"It's fine," she said, shrinking back a bit in embarrassment.

"I guess we all have Personas," Mana said, sending a nod to Ayano. "Still, you don't have to worry about fighting. Just hang back and we'll have this finished soon. Got one more to save."

"I can still help," Ayano said quickly. "I don't know if I can do much to fight, but I'll be able to make you better if you get hurt."

"Works for me," Kosaku said, tapping Mana on the shoulder as he jogged off. "Let's go. Agathion's not that tough, so I doubt he's going to last much longer." It didn't take long to track him down, the crackle of electricity and pyres of flame signaling his location for all to see. In an almost uncharacteristic show of bravery, he seemed to have intentionally led the Shadows a good ways away from Sotaro, hoping at least one of them could escape.

The group came upon Agathion struggling to keep pace between two enemies, spending more time fleeing and healing himself than actually counterattacking. One was a cackling pumpkin-headed thing tossing fire from a lantern, the other a feathered lion circling overhead sending down gusts of wind to intensify the flames with every beat of its enormous wings and swooping in front of its partner to block any stray electrical attacks.

The first target was the lion, Mu Guiying sending an arrow straight into its chest and causing it to fall to the ground. This caught the attention of all of the combatants, Agathion making a sound halfway between a screech and a squeal at seeing everyone come to his rescue.

"Hellhound! Show them what we've got!" Kosaku's Persona leaped out from behind him, closing the gap between it and the pumpkin in record time and clawing into it with both its front paws. Having gotten the drop on it, there wasn't much it could do to avoid this from happening. Though it tried to retaliate with a burst of flames, it did little to slow the demonic creature down. "Take it!" he shouted, Hellhound tossing the enemy into the air with its teeth.

"Right!" Sotaro said, following up with his own attack. "Merlin, let's finish it!" His Persona spun in a circle, launching one of its fists directly at the Shadow. Landing a clean hit, the enemy barely had time to give a shout before being eradicated.

Only one enemy remained, returning to the air and snarling as Mana calmly approached it. Though it was clearly the stronger of the two, it was unlikely to matter much against the sheer number of Persona users on deck. Even less so after it was hit with a spell that dropped its defensive abilities.

The left side of her face was engulfed in blue fire, Mu Guiying floating beside Mana in tranquil fury. Moving within striking distance of the Shadow, she uttered the words, "Try it," goading the creature into attempting to kick up a storm in front of her.

Her Persona deftly cut through the gust, swinging its sword fast enough to blow apart the miniature cyclones it had created before charging forward and stabbing it in the throat. Slicing through the side of the enemy's neck, she turned back to face her comrades as they came up on either side of her. The Shadow couldn't last under a combined attack from both Hellhound and Merlin, disappearing as a conjoined sphere of flames and darkness impacted its face.

"You came back," Agathion whispered, marveling at the sight of Kosaku and Mana coming to his rescue alongside Sotaro. "You didn't leave after all."

"Don't get all sappy on us," Mana commanded. "How were you struggling with enemies that weak?"

"To be fair," Sotaro interrupted, "we loosened them up for you. I figured out Merlin can slow things down. I hit them with that before they hit me with...a lot."

"Even more reason not to have a problem," she said, tossing her hands in the air.

"Sorry we weren't at the top of our game after being chased around for three days!" Agathion shouted. "A bunch of Shadows realized there was just two of us and kept coming. We didn't have any time to rest. Every time we took one out, more would pop out of somewhere."

"All the more reason not to go in without us," Kosaku said, shaking his head.

"We didn't have much of a choice," he shot back, whimpering suggestively as Ceridwen showered him with a dose of healing fluids. Feeling his strength return, he zipped over to Ayano to thank her. "I don't know who you are but I already respect you more than most of the humans here."

"I was supposed to heal this one, right?" Ayano asked. "It looks kind of scary but it's not attacking me. Is it safe?"

"I take it back, you're as bad as all of them," Agathion said immediately.

Though she was a bit confused, Ayano reached into her bag and pulled out a chocolate bar, holding it out to the Shadow. "Does this help?" she asked, pulling her hand back moments before Agathion's teeth clamped down onto the candy, shaking it back and forth like a dog. In truth, he probably didn't need to eat, having simply acquired a taste for chocolate and paper after sharing those candies with Kosaku.

"Can I please have one?" Sotaro asked, almost sprinting over to her at the sight of food. "I haven't eaten since my supplies ran out. I'm very hungry."

"Oh, sure," she said, digging through her things and pulling out another for him.

"And it's the good kind, too!" On the verge of tears, he unwrapped the bar and started to eat. "I can't believe you two brought a goddess with you to come save me."

"Enough fooling around," Kosaku said, grabbing Sotaro and Agathion. "Let's find us a way out of here. We can all go get some food after that." This seemed simple enough, a door having opened not far off from where they stood. With the arrival of three more Persona users, it seemed that the Shadows' bloodlust had been quenched for the time being, Neirosoi finally ready to let them leave.

They quickly exited, finding themselves appearing just outside the entrance to the shrine. "How'd we get back here?" Kosaku asked, scratching his head.

"We came in this way," Sotaro reminded him. "It's not too unusual we'd come out nearby."

"Guess that's true," he conceded. Sniffing the air, he backed a few steps away from Sotaro. "Okay, now that we're back, you really need a shower."

"It's not that bad!" he said, seemingly rebuffed the instant he did as everyone else joined Kosaku several feet away.

"He is a **farmer** and he is telling you that," Mana emphasized. "Go home and bathe."

"Oh, no," he groaned, holding his head in his hands. "I've been gone for...I don't even know how long. Did I miss school? What about my parents? Are they looking for me?"

"Half the town, I think," she said, Sotaro groaning louder and falling to his knees in despair. "Just make something up. It's not that hard."

"How do you make something up to excuse being gone for three days?" Kosaku asked. "He's not exactly the type of guy to just run off."

"Why not just tell the truth?" Agathion said mockingly. "Tell everyone you were in another world fighting monsters. That would work great."

"You're not helping!" he shouted, composing himself after a few deep breaths. "Okay, so...maybe I got on the train to go a town over to buy a game, but I lost track of time after I fell asleep on it and ended up way far away from where I meant to go. I couldn't call home because my phone died and someone stole my wallet so I couldn't go back and had to find enough change to pay for the ticket. Does that sound believable?" While he was ostensibly asking everyone, this was mainly directed at Mana given her presumed experience at running away from home.

"I'd believe it," Ayano said softly from the back.

"That's all I needed to hear," he sighed, relief washing over him. "By the way, who is that? I'm going to sound like a real jerk if we've met before, but I don't recognize you."

"Ayano," Mana told him. "She creeps around and hides from people. Saw you go in and came with us by accident."

"It's nice to meet you," he said. "I wish we could have met under better circumstances, though. I'm Sotaro if you didn't already know. The guy in the jar is Agathion. He's a Shadow."

"I thought so," she said, watching Agathion gnaw at the last bits of foil from the chocolate bar he'd eaten. "I'm glad I was able to help."

"That Persona of yours is something else," Kosaku told her. "Way more powerful than our last healer."

"Still waiting on my thank yous!" Agathion shouted.

"That's kind of you to say," Ayano said to Kosaku. "I don't use Ceridwen for much so I don't really know much about it. To tell the truth, that's part of the reason I come here, since it's one of the only places I know of where I can make it come out."

"Hey, the farm I work at is like that. If you want to hang out somewhere that's not just a rundown mess of pending lawsuits, stop by sometime."

"You'd be okay with me doing that?" she asked. "I don't want to be a bother."

He waved his hand to dismiss the idea. "Nah, it's fine. It's nice to have someone to talk to that isn't an animal since my bosses are always doing something else. None of these guys ever come to see me, either." She seemed pleased with this, blue eyes lighting up in a way that, though the group wasn't aware of it, rarely ever happened.

As Kosaku and Ayano talked about the ins and outs of Personas and Agathion picked his teeth with a rock he found on the ground, Mana gestured for Sotaro to follow her into the shrine. They managed to slip away from the others, finding a spot just out of earshot to have a talk. "I'm sorry for this," she began, catching him off guard.

"What for?" he asked, though he was already fairly aware of what she might be about to say.

"For all of this. I dragged you into this to start then I left you behind. You keep getting put in danger because of me."

"Hey, it's like I said before, I made the choice to go to Neirosoi. I can't force you to be a team with me, so you don't have anything to be sorry about."

"Would you stop it?" she said, stomping her foot. "You're always minimizing yourself. Just admit that I screwed you over really bad. I'm a selfish asshole. I know this and so do you. I got involved in the other world stuff because it interested me and I tried to bail because..." She hesitated for a moment, silently thankful that Kosaku couldn't hear her. "Because I got scared. Everyone almost died, so I just packed up and left. I knew you would go back anyway but I didn't care. All that mattered was that I wasn't the one dying."

He shook his head, sighing. "Look, we all know you're an asshole – no one's going to debate that – but you're kind of selling yourself short here. Maybe you were selfish through a lot of it, but that's not honest, is it? If all you cared about was yourself, you wouldn't have kept going with me for as long as we did. You wouldn't have charged in there with everyone to find me, either."

Taken aback at the insinuation that maybe she wasn't entirely scum, Mana asked, "So what are you trying to say here?" sounding almost offended in the process.

"I'm saying that you're not as bad as you want everyone to think. Not even as bad as you think you are."

"You're full of shit," she scoffed.

"Then why'd you save me? You said we aren't friends, so what's it matter if I got lost in there forever? You're just going to leave this place after a year, anyway. You'd probably forget about me in a month or two."

"Because I didn't want you to die, stupid." She coughed, trying to keep herself from raising her voice. "I can't just not want someone to die without having some ulterior motive?"

"So you're willing to risk your life in a place that you just admitted terrifies you for someone you don't even like just because of some vague love-for-all-things mentality?" he questioned, unable to keep a straight face through the whole sentence. "Even after you washed your hands of everything and I went in totally on my own without anyone forcing me to do it? Come on, just admit it."

"Admit what?"

"That you care." As he watched Mana's face turn red, he had all the proof he needed to conclude he was right. "Told you so."

"I will...rip you in half," she stammered. "I'm not apologizing for anything anymore. You're just going to turn it around on me like this."

"I'll learn to live with it," he shrugged. "More importantly, what happens now? I'm not going to ask you to rejoin the team if you don't want to. I really think I can help people through Neirosoi, though, so I'm going back soon."

Mana sighed, pushing her bangs back with her hands. "I mean...I don't want to. I really don't. I don't want to watch anyone die if we ever meet something like that Shadow again. But I can't let you go in there by yourself, and it'd be a lie if I said I didn't want to get to the bottom of some of the shit going on in this town, too."

"Then we're back in business?" he asked with a smile.

"Only if you can do one thing for me," she said, expression turning serious. "You need to start putting yourself first."

"What does that mean?" he questioned.

"It means everything you've done since we met is for other people. You've kept my ass out of trouble for no reason, you've gone back there again and again to try and save the people in comas, and you kept going for Agathion even after the rest of us quit."

"I just...want to help people," he said, a bit confused as to why this was a bad thing.

"And that's cool, but you're going to get yourself killed if you don't think of yourself. You almost did." She went quiet for a moment, then said, "So do things for yourself sometimes, got it?" Another second passed before she added, "If you do, maybe I'll try to do things for other people more. I'm not a very good teammate, I get that. Or a very good friend."

"I guess I can't say no to an offer like that." He paused before beginning to laugh. "Oh, wait, wow. Okay, I get what you're saying now. I finally agree to take care of myself but only because someone else told me to first. Yeah, I get it."

"That's what I'm saying!" She shook her head. "We've both got stuff to work on to fix our shitty personalities." Mana wasn't entirely sure what brought these feelings on. She'd never been all that happy with the person she was but had always managed to rationalize or accept things as they were, unable or unwilling to take any steps towards change. Now, though, something inside her wanted things to be different.

"Then I guess we're in this for the long haul," he said. "I'm looking forward to working with you again."

This managed to get a smile out of her, the moment abruptly ruined once she said, "Yeah, but I'm being serious when I say you need to go home right now and take a shower because I'm about to throw up just being this close to you."

They continued to bicker over his stench as they returned to the front of the shrine, Mana calling attention to herself to announce the decision they'd come to. "So the team is back," she told both Kosaku and Agathion. "I don't know if it's a good idea or even a useful one. We might all die for all I know. But I'm here to stay this time. You two in?"

"Until I'm a human, I can't abandon my minions," Agathion said.

Kosaku just sighed, shaking his head. "Like I said, I'm a farmer. It's just..." He stopped short of anything else, pursing his lips as he grunted and groaned with his arms crossed, seemingly in a lot of pain. Finally, he threw up his hands and shouted, "Aw, damn it, fine! Yeah, I'm in. I can't let you kids go in there on your own. And...look, I kind of like hanging out with you. I don't have many friends and it's nice to do something besides work."

"Then I guess the Redeemers are back," Sotaro said with a nod.

"Can I come, too?" Ayano asked sheepishly, raising her hand.

"You sure that's what you want?" Kosaku asked. "This is dangerous stuff.

"You saw what we're up against," Sotaro added.

Agathion shoved past both of them. "Forget what they're saying. You're a worthy minion, so join already." He was abruptly thrown to the ground by Mana after that.

"It does sound dangerous," she said, nodding. "Even so, I want to join you. You all have these Personas, too. I've never met anyone else like that. I want to learn more about it from people who might...understand me. Does that make any sense?"

"You'd better understand this isn't some social club," Mana told her. "If you really want to join, you need to be prepared for what's to come."

That confidence from before flickered to life inside Ayano as she said, "I'm not as fragile as I look. I'll do whatever it takes to be part of this team."

The others looked to each other, nodding approvingly as Mana said, "Then we're counting on you."

"I'll try my best!" she said cheerily, probably acting the happiest any of them had seen her so far.

"From now on, we're doing this smarter," Mana told the group.

"We go in prepared," Sotaro agreed. "We're not going to keep making mistakes like we have been."

"How about we come up with some goals, then?" Kosaku suggested.

"Number one should be making me a human," Agathion said.

"And number two is learning more about how the Shadows affect our world," Sotaro said. "If we can figure that out, we can get to number three, which is solving the coma incidents."

"Guess we're still aiming pretty high," Mana said, leaning against one of the shrine's walls. "Still, at least it won't be boring."

"No one minds if I stay here from now on, right?" Agathion asked. "If I had to pick, I'd rather be in your world than mine. This whole deal seems kind of useful, too."

"No complaints," Sotaro said. He held out his hand after that. "Everyone on the same page with regards to our mission? If so, let's make it official." One by one, each member of the Redeemers placed their hand atop his, united in one glorious moment of true comradery.

While a bit anticlimactic, they went their separate ways after that. Given the state they were in, heading straight back to Neirosoi would be a poor decision. Not to mention, as everyone continued to remind him, Sotaro desperately needed a bath.

Agathion stayed behind in the shrine, anointing it as their new headquarters and his new home. Kosaku gave the rest a ride back into town, the teenagers returning to their homes while he headed back to work.

* * *

First day of Wrath and already a new chapter. Don't expect this from me ever again. I just happened to have this written in advance.

I considered having them split for a little longer and ultimately decided that would just slow things down. Outside of maybe introducing a few more characters in that time, the bulk of it would just have been Mana being depressed and angry and not doing anything related to Personas or Shadows. Would also mean we'd be going without three of our main characters for all that time, too, so it seemed like it would hurt more than it could help.

Being on a monthly schedule has its advantages, as well, meaning I got to make it feel like a lot more time passed between their breakup and reformation than it actually did in the story. Not sure how, but I think I've gotten into the mindset of a manga writer with all of this despite the fact Jump would cancel my ass immediately given the abysmal numbers I'm pulling on each issue. And that's why my actual job is boring technical writing.

Writing this, I considered maybe having another boss show up for the fight, but that felt a little too soon after the minotaur. I want to keep them rare, plus it wouldn't really make for a good triumphant return if their reunion devolved into a 15 minute drag out fight they all barely survived again. We saw an Anzu, though. That doesn't count for much since they kind of suck, but it was there.

I'm glad we've finally made it here. We're at the part where Mana might actually be able to make friends, she finally went up a level on the Magician Social Link, and Ayano has appeared. Out of everyone I expect to show up in this and everyone I've written so far, she's my favorite. Hopefully you'll see why as we learn more about her. Imagine she showed up in one of the several blank spaces in that ending I was talking about before since we're doing it in a way that doesn't preemptively reveal the major characters until they fully show up in the story itself.

That's about all we've got for now. Another story is ending soon so that may translate into more work put into this, but we'll see how things play out (don't expect anything from me ever again). Thanks for reading. Share if you're enjoying. Always remember the chocolate.


	10. Lunchtime

_The gang unwind with some good food._

* * *

Kosaku parted the plastic screen surrounding the roadside shop, savory smells and warmth escaping as his comrades entered. He followed suit after the three of them had sat down, closing it back and taking a seat beside Sotaro on one of the several stools in front of the ramen stand. "Be there in a second!" the chef shouted from the back, getting something to a stopping point so that nothing boiled over or burned while he was tending the customers.

"You don't have to pay for us, you know," Sotaro told Kosaku as he scanned the menu, so excited to be going to out to eat with everyone that he'd purposefully had a small lunch that day at school just to work up a good appetite.

"Don't worry about it," he said. "I said I'd take you guys out for food last time, so I'm taking you out."

"You sure you can afford this?" Mana asked dryly from between Sotaro and Ayano. "Pretty sure farming doesn't make you a lot of money."

"If you're short on money, I'll help pay," Ayano offered with a worried expression.

"I'm paying!" Kosaku declared, pounding his hand on the counter. "You all give me so much shit. Didn't you learn to respect people older than you?"

"I respect you," Ayano added quickly.

Kosaku snapped his fingers to point towards her. "Earning your spot on this team already." He turned his head towards the gray-haired chef as he approached, setting down tall glasses of water for all of them. "How's it going, Pops?"

"Not too bad," the man said with a stern nod. From the tarnished look of his once-white apron, he'd been hard at work before they got here. "You already getting to the point where you're desperate to relive high school? What's going on here?"

"Nah, they're just like my proteges, you know? They saw me and thought I was a pretty cool dude and started following me around."

The chef turned to Sotaro, every wrinkle on his face filled with doubt. "What's the real reason, kid?"

Sotaro chuckled, waving his hand at Kosaku's look of utter defeat. "It's kind of complicated. Nothing weird, though. We just kind of found each other recently."

"Guess I'll buy that," the chef said, deciding it wasn't really his business to begin with unless someone was getting hurt. "You all decided on what you want?"

"What's good here?" Mana asked the group. "Last time I came I just got the miso on reflex."

"Right, you're the one who came here before the school year," the chef noted. "Didn't think anyone would be transferring out here."

"Can't imagine why," she replied sarcastically, getting a small laugh out of him.

"The miso's pretty good," Sotaro told her. "For me...I think I'll get the Special today."

"The Special?" she asked, quirking a brow.

"Same for me," Kosaku said.

"What is it?" she asked again, this time a bit more irritable.

"It's a takeoff on the Wakayama style," Sotaro explained. "That's where Chef is from. But he had this idea about making it more suited for people up here in the cold."

The chef nodded. "Thought it was a failure at first, but everyone seemed to love it. I sweetened the broth and added a bunch of hot ingredients at the same time. I'm pretty proud of it now."

"Guess I'll have that, then," Mana said.

"You sure you can handle it?" Kosaku said with a condescending grin. "It's pretty intense on your first time. All that fancy city food probably didn't prepare you for something like this."

"Extra large," she said without missing a beat.

"And with pork," Sotaro added. "We can order some chashu, right?"

"Sure, if you want it," Kosaku told him. "Just...only two slices, okay? Not made of money over here."

The chef nodded again, taking a black pen from behind his ear and writing it all down on a crumpled notepad. "What about you?" he asked Ayano who almost seemed shocked at being acknowledged.

Her eyes darted around the menu, mouth slowly opening to say, "Can I have...um, the small chicken broth ramen, please?"

"That's all you want?" Mana asked. "That's for little kids."

"I don't eat much," she said, hands folded in her lap as she twiddled her thumbs.

"If you're worried about me paying, it's fine," Kosaku told her. "Order whatever you feel like."

"I'll be okay," she assured him. "Thank you."

The chef only shrugged. "Just tell me if you all want anything else. I'll go get this ready for you."

As their food was being prepared, Sotaro spoke up. "Ayano," he said. "Sorry if we're making you feel left out. We sort of got used to the way things were before, but we don't want you to feel like you're not one of us."

"It's okay," she said quietly. "I don't talk very much."

"Personally, I like people who speak with their actions more," Mana said, almost surprising all of them with her reassurance. That was reassurance, right? "Just do what you want. You don't have to talk if you don't feel like it."

She nodded. "I won't. Or...I will. I...sorry, I don't know which is right."

"That's how most of us feel when Mana starts talking," Kosaku said, having Sotaro shoved into him given she was too far away to do it for herself.

"She _i_ _s_ right, though," Sotaro added, righting himself in his seat. "Still, we want to get to know you."

She seemed troubled by this, saying, "How do you do that?"

Thinking for a moment, he replied, "Well, something like...what do you do for fun? Like, hobbies."

"Oh," she said, going quiet shortly after. During that time, the chef brought out their food – three bowls (one extra large) filled with noodles in a slightly red broth topped with sliced pork, beansprouts, buttered sweet corn, seaweed sheets, runny boiled egg halves, and a healthy shake of pepper flakes, plus a tiny bowl of lighter soup with some menma and thinly shredded pork – and told them to call for him if they needed anything before returning to the back to cook. "Well, I don't really have that many," she eventually responded, taking some chopsticks from the holder to start eating.

"Nothing?" Mana asked, being rude and scraping her sticks together before taking them in one hand. "You don't do anything but hang out in abandoned buildings?"

"Sometimes..." She paused again, seemingly nervous about talking about herself. "Sometimes I'll...play rhythm games."

"That's pretty cool," Sotaro said, slurping up some noodles right after and shaking his head vigorously. "Handheld? PC?"

"Handheld," she answered, digging into the bag at her feet and pulling out a small black console. "I like the ones in the Phoenix Ranger Dance spinoff series."

"Really?" he asked, getting a bit excited. "I love Phoenix Ranger, too. I never checked out the spinoffs, though. Should I get them?"

She nodded, almost a bit enthusiastically. "They keep getting steadily better with each new one. The latest has every Ranger from all the series up to the current one and they put in a lot of time to make each of them dance uniquely. I really like it."

"I used to be into that show back when I was a kid," Kosaku added, sweat pouring from his face as he slurped up some noodles. "Kind of fell out of it. What's it like these days?"

Sotaro breathed deeply, fanning himself as he started to sweat. "We'd have to start from the beginning. Every show builds on the one before it, so it's probably really different from what you remember. We'd be here all day."

As Sotaro and Ayano (mostly the former) started to educate Kosaku on how that particular tokusatsu series had changed, Mana looked cautiously into her soup. It was becoming clear that both of the guys were having some kind of reaction to the stuff, faces beet red and dripping with perspiration. Was that normal?

She was at least sure that there wasn't anything like this back home. Against her better judgment, she decided to try some, immediately wanting to gag as the small amount of caustic broth stuck to the chewy noodles hit her tongue. Just as quickly, though, that feeling passed, replaced with one of utter tranquility and peace as sweet notes began to appear. Then it was back to the heat, assaulting her taste buds like they owed it money. Then, once again, it was back to sweet to tend to the damage, all of this backed up by some very pronounced savory flavors.

It only got better when the extras came in, the rich and buttery corn coating her tongue with its sweet juices in each bite while the chashu packed a whole new dimension of flavor all its own. The crunch from the beansprouts and seaweed was also quite nice, especially when mixed with the runny egg yolk and marinated white.

As hard as it was to impress her, Mana was thoroughly won over by this ramen. "Holy shit," she muttered to herself, wiping her forehead. If sweating like a German in a pub was what it cost to enjoy this meal, though, she'd gladly pay the price.

She nudged Ayano, holding up some noodles between her chopsticks. "Hey, try this," she said.

"No, thank you," she said, shaking her head. "I don't do well with spicy food."

While Mana would normally try to convince someone to overcome their inhibitions for something like this, she remained silent. Her only response was to shrug, reasoning that she'd just get to enjoy every last bit of it herself. Initially, her order of an extra large was just to flex on Kosaku, but now she was truly glad to have gotten it. And she didn't have to pay a single cent.

"So that's the gist of it," Sotaro concluded, having tied a napkin around his head at some point to keep the sweat out of his eyes.

"That sounds wild," Kosaku said, drinking the last of his broth right after and chugging a whole glass of water. He'd barely spoken at all during the lengthy explanation, engrossed by both the winding plot and the complex taste of his meal. "How long have you been following it?"

"Since about Series 31. I liked it and my dad showed me the ones before. Took a while, but I'm caught up with every single episode now."

"Damn," he marveled. "That shit's wild. What about Ayano?"

They saw her perk up at the sound of her name, turning towards them. "Yeah, when did you start watching?" Sotaro asked.

"Oh, I played the rhythm games first," she said. "I started watching after that. It was about five years ago, I think. I haven't seen much before that."

"You should both come watch some episodes at my house sometime," Sotaro suggested. "The old stuff is really fun."

Kosaku nodded, leaning over to shake his hair out onto the ground. "If your parents don't mind some dude showing up, sure."

"Mana, you can come, too, if you want," he added.

She shrugged, more concerned with finishing her dangerous ramen. "Fine," she replied, slurping more noodles. Though she wasn't at all interested in the show, she'd resolved to try and be less openly antagonistic towards the people she relied on after everything that happened.

"I've never been to anyone's house before," Ayano whispered, apprehensive to accept the offer.

"Guess that comes with the whole home schooling thing," Kosaku said. "You don't seem like you've got many friends, either. No offense, obviously."

"I don't," she said plainly. "Talking to people is hard. I can only do it with all of you since...we're the same. Or close enough, at least."

"Hey, now you've got several friends," Sotaro said, trying to put a positive spin on things.

"I was meaning to ask," Ayano said. "Is it okay that we didn't bring Agathion? He might look strange here, but I feel bad leaving him out."

"Pretty sure he couldn't come even if he wanted to," Mana told her, the ramen really starting to kick her ass at this point. It looked less like she was eating some soup and more like she'd taken a quick break from the last leg of a triathlon.

Sotaro nodded. "He seems to work the way Personas do, so he can't leave that shrine as long as he's in our world."

She nodded a bit sadly. "Could we bring him anything?" she asked. "I think he might be sad if we come back without any food. He really liked the chocolate I had before."

"Yeah, you're probably right," Kosaku said, cracking his neck. "Yo, Pops! Give me, like, ten gyoza to go!"

"Sure!" the chef called back, switching from his soup prep to cook the dumplings.

"You sure we shouldn't order those later?" Sotaro asked him. "We'll still be here for a while."

"You're almost done, though," he said, pointing at the few remaining bits of food in the bowl.

"Yeah, but Mana's still got, like, half left." They both turned to her, realizing that the full power of the Special was beginning to take effect. She was getting what many dubbed the noodle shakes, hands trembling as she placed each bite to her lips. Just like the two before her, her face had gone red and was dripping with sweat, the difference being that her body hadn't experienced anything like this before and was being hit with these new sensations far more intensely than anyone else.

Ayano nudged her gently on the shoulder. "Maybe you should stop," she suggested.

Mana grunted, shaking her head. "It's good," she coughed. At this point, she couldn't even tell whether she was still enjoying the food, simple pride keeping her from tapping out. There was something dark and ancient about this soup that no one could fully comprehend, she thought. That was the only explanation she could come to for all of this.

It took her around ten more minutes to do it, but she eventually finished the entire bowl. Everyone, chef included, gave her a round of applause, watching as she slowly slumped over onto the counter. "You might want some water after all that," the chef said, setting down a large jug of it next to her which she weakly grabbed and began to pour down her throat.

"I feel like I just watched something inspiring," Sotaro said.

Kosaku nodded sagely next to him. "Like someone with a broken arm throwing the game-winning pitch in baseball," he said.

"You did really well," Ayano told her. "Are you okay, though?"

Mana gave a weak thumbs up, taking a few wobbly steps away from the counter. Stomach filled with far too much soup and body trying desperately to balance itself after losing so much water, she leaned on Sotaro's shoulder for support. "Probably have to go home now," she said.

"Yeah, I think you earned a rest," he said. "I'll tell Agathion you fought valiantly."

"Tell him to eat my ass if he starts acting smart," she countered.

After Kosaku very reluctantly paid (he only realized just now how much all of this would cost), the three walked Mana back to Ueno's house. "Can you make it okay?" Sotaro asked as she pushed open the gate.

"Yeah, I think I walked most of it off," she said, stumbling a bit just to cast a healthy amount of doubt onto her statement. "Guess we'll go back in another day."

"Not like we're in a hurry," Kosaku said. "Nothing's been going on lately, so all we've got to do right now is try to go deeper. Running in after we all just experienced the Special would probably be a bad idea."

"Good point," she agreed. "Anyway, see you tomorrow, I guess." As she turned to leave, she stopped, turning back briefly to add, "Thanks for paying." It felt strange to actually say something like that for a change without any kind of sarcasm or bite to it. She didn't exactly like what that said about her.

She nearly fell through the doorway, waving behind her until the door shut. Kicking off her shoes, she stomped through the house towards the stairs. "Oh, welcome home," she heard Ueno say from the kitchen. "How was school?"

"Fine," she answered, deciding not to simply ignore him for the time being. All of these changes in her behavior were starting to weigh on her. A part of her mind knew they were what she _should_ do for the people she wanted in her life, but it was exceedingly hard to break a pattern. Not to mention just pretty tiring.

Ueno almost seemed shocked to have heard her answer, the sound of a metal bowl clanging against something resonating after her response. Whatever he was doing was put on hold as he came out to see her sitting on the stairs looking somewhat surly and tired. "You look terrible," he said on reflex, shrinking back a bit at how harsh that sounded.

"Thanks," she replied, beginning to regret this decision. "I had the Special."

He nodded, apparently understanding immediately. "Yeah, that's pretty rough on your first time. Is it still as good as it used to be? Oh, well, I guess you wouldn't know that. It looks like it still wipes you out, at least."

Assuming there wasn't anything else to talk about, Mana got to her feet with a great deal of grunting, turning to leave up the stairs. "Hey, wait," Ueno said from behind her, forcing her to a stop. She wasn't exactly thrilled about making more small talk about nothing, evident by her expression.

He already looked apologetic, having picked up on her irritation. He coughed once to clear his throat, scratching his head as he tried to find the words to convey what he wanted to say. "The last couple days, you were...you didn't seem like you were having a good time. Or...worse than usual time, I guess. And I don't know if that's still happening or even what happened, but I wanted you to know that I'll try to help."

"I know," she said dismissively, hoping he'd just stop talking and let her go to bed.

"I know you know, but...I want you to believe that." He tapped his toes against the floor, biting his bottom lip. "I mean that...I know I'm not really good at this whole thing. I don't seem dependable, right? And I'm probably not. But I want to try to be. At least as hard as you're trying to get through all of your stuff."

He sighed loudly. "I don't know what I'm saying. You just didn't seem like yourself and I thought maybe I could reassure you, or something. It probably didn't make any sense, though. Just...know that I know you're doing your best. And that I'll try to do what I can to help you if you're in trouble."

Her instinct was to immediately dismiss him and go on her way. That was the easiest thing to do. She didn't need to be told any of this. What could he even do if he never left the house, anyway? It's not like he'd be out there to rescue her if things ever got out of hand again.

Still, though. Ueno was saying he believed in her. She certainly didn't give him or anyone else a reason to. And it was still true that she didn't need to be told this by anyone. But that didn't mean it didn't feel...nice to hear.

Her expression softened a bit. Mana reached out her hand and gave him a small tap on the side of the arm. "I know," she said, really meaning it this time.

Judging by the smile, this was what Ueno had hoped to hear. "I'll let you go now," he said, waving her up the stairs. "You're going to want to sleep all that off. If you don't, I'll wake you up early so you can get ready for school tomorrow. You're really going to want a shower."

She nodded again before ascending, trudging to her room and flopping down into bed. She resisted the urge to pass out then there long enough to strip her clothes off and put on her sleepwear, falling back down as soon as she'd changed.

But for as tired as she was, Mana couldn't sleep just yet. That conversation had stirred something inside her. While it was true that Ueno believed in her, he wasn't the only one. There were others now, too. Her team for one, their brief falling out seeming to have made them come back together stronger than ever.

But there were still two others left. Two who had believed in her from the start and even at her lowest moment when everyone else left her behind. Two who she really shouldn't have avoided for so long.

Summoning whatever strength she had in her, her arm reached out from under the covers and grabbed her phone. Already two new texts since she last looked to clear them out, neither accusing or upset despite the total radio silence up to this point.

Hand shaking just a bit, she hit the number to dial, putting it to her ear and listening as it rung once. Then twice. Then nearly a third before it picked up. The woman on the other end almost sounded unsure as if she couldn't believe what the ID came up as. "Hello?" she said.

Mana cleared her throat. "Hi..." she began. "Hi, mama."

* * *

No, this definitely isn't an excuse for me to talk about ramen for a whole chapter. You're imagining it. And I'm not already planning a recipe to reproduce the one I created in here. That would never happen.

Sorry to all the Agathion fans out there, but he had to stay home. Rest assured that he spent the entire time eating rocks and yelling at small animals.

From the sound of these conversations, you'd think I was a Power Rangers or Sentai fan, but I actually have no idea what any of that is. I just know someone who is so I can fake it for the sake of a story. While there is, sadly, no actual rhythm game based on the franchise, someone has apparently taken the time to write a fanfic about that. So do with that what you will.

Looks like we went up on the Social Link again. This attitude adjustment is doing wonders for Mana. Turns out being not always an asshole makes people like you more. It's a hard concept to wrap your head around, but it's true.

Most importantly, Mana has finally called her fucking parents. Only been more than a month since you got here, so I'm sure that's cool. Better late than never, though. Those two are so patient with her.

That's about all we've got now. Expect some school next chapter since we haven't done much of substance in there yet. Also, even though I said never to expect anything from me ever again, I may very well have yet another done by the first of the month again. Sometimes I just get excited to write all of this. Thanks for reading. Always remember to hydrate.


	11. Positive Attitude

_Mana's new outlook on life proves more challenging than she thought._

* * *

Mana awoke this morning feeling genuinely good for the first time in years. She'd gotten a full night of restful sleep without any interruptions from Igor, bad dreams, or anything else that might normally bother her. Sitting up cracked her back in all the right places and the slightly warmer than usual breeze coming in from the window after she opened it put what could only be described as pep in her step. Maybe that ramen really did have some kind of power.

Finishing her morning smoke quickly and showering off the soup-induced sweat, she dressed herself and headed downstairs for breakfast. She was a bit ahead of schedule at the moment so she could probably afford to take some time with it. If he was up, she might even eat with Ueno for once. Just the thought made her skin crawl. Not the fact that she'd be eating with him, but the fact that it was almost certainly confirmation that she was going soft.

Soft or not, things did seem to be looking up for her. While she wasn't sure whether or not they were really friends at this point, she had managed to establish a few others in this town that seemed reliable. And she had to admit they were all growing on her just a bit. Maybe she could afford to be a little more soft, at least for however much longer she was forced to be here. Still, none of this came easy for her.

As she neared the kitchen, Mana heard a peculiar sound – laughter. Ueno was a fairly reserved and nervous person during the time she'd known him so it was already strange to hear him like this. What was even more strange was that it sounded like there was someone else laughing with him.

Poking her head inside, she found her guardian sitting at the table like normal alongside – of all things – a woman. She appeared to be around his age with white hair in a ponytail and an entirely gray ensemble of a sweater and pants, though her most striking feature was clearly her towering height. Even while sitting, she was a good two heads taller than Mana herself.

"Oh, morning," Ueno greeted her, an unusual amount of enthusiasm in his voice "Got time for some breakfast?"

"I'm fine," Mana said, still looking the woman over. Her cautious had outweighed any hunger she might be feeling right now.

Seeming to sense this, he realized he should probably make some introductions. "Uh, Mana, this is my friend, Momoe Goda." He pointed towards her, then back to Mana. "And that's Mana."

The woman gave a wave from her seat. "Greetings," she said, voice low and filled with sleep. "Nice to finally meet the problem child." Apparently, they'd been talking about her. "How you holding up in town so far?"

"Fine," she answered, making the conscious effort to keep her tone measured. She was trying to be positive so she didn't want to accidentally come off like she was pissed. That was apparently a thing most people assumed when they talked to her. Granted, she was pissed off pretty frequently, but it wasn't her default.

"Yeah, it's pretty boring around here," she nodded. "Barely even have any bodies to bury these days, but I guess that's a good thing." The look of shock on Mana's face indicated she needed to explain further. "I'm a coroner. Not out here dragging corpses around recreationally or anything."

"I think we've talked enough about corpses," Ueno broke in with a nervous laugh.

She smirked. "What, the Dead Wives Club isn't talking about dead people for a change?"

"Dead Wives Club?" Mana questioned, Ueno scratching the back of his head as she said it.

Goda nodded, seemingly unfazed by any of the growing awkwardness in the room. "Kind of a little nickname for us. Both of us have dead wives so sometimes I come over and we talk about it."

"Okay, then," Mana said in complete deadpan, desperately looking for a way out of this conversation. "I'm heading to school," she blurted out.

"Right," Ueno agreed, eager to move things along to spare the both of them any more uncomfortable oversharing. "Better get going."

Watching Mana rush out the door, Goda gave a nod. "She seems nice," she commented, Ueno forcing a laugh to avoid having to confront a genuine assessment of his charge's character since he'd known her.

As for Mana herself, she made it to school without issue. Like most days, nothing much of interest seemed to be going on along the short route to the building. Even if there had been, she was pretty deep in thought for most of the journey and she likely wouldn't have noticed. She was too focused on where her life was going at the moment.

There was so much going on now and she didn't know where to start. For one, there were the coma incidents and whatever relationship they might have to that other world – Neirosoi. Whatever minimal progress she felt like she'd made on that front was far surpassed by that of her personal relationships; namely, that she had some now. Still wasn't entirely sure how to deal with that.

Then there were the Personas and the Shadows. Igor's explanation (or, more accurately, his confirmation of her own deductions) let her know the what of the matter but still failed to touch on the why or how. As far as she could tell, her and the others all gained their abilities by dying once before, but how did those two things relate? Why were they able to keep on living like this as opposed to all the other people who demonstrably didn't get that opportunity?

So many questions and so few answers. Were they ever going to get to the bottom of any of this? Daunting as this all may be, something inside her told her to stay hopeful. Maybe it was a bit too optimistic or even arrogant, but she believed that they might make a difference so long as they kept at it. And with their efforts redoubled now, they certainly wouldn't be giving up.

"Hey!" she heard Sotaro called, turning to see him running up from behind her. "Looks like you're alive."

"Barely," she said. "How's the shrine?"

"It's good," he replied. "Agathion liked what we brought him, bag included. Speaking of, we're actually planning to go down and fix it up some in a couple days. Kosaku's going to grab some supplies in his truck. You want to help?"

"What's the point?" she asked.

He shrugged. "I mean, it's kind of our base now. And Agathion's living there. Might as well fix it up so it doesn't seem like it might collapse at any second." Sotaro scratched the back of his head, adding, "Plus, I think Ayano spends a lot of time there alone. Kind of makes me nervous."

"Yeah," Mana agreed quickly. "Yeah, that place probably needs some help."

"Great," he smiled. "I've been texting Kosaku about it already. We should probably set up a group chat already, right?"

"Yeah, sure." Being this agreeable was starting to scare her. Manual labor? Concern over someone else? A group chat? None of this was like her.

As they swapped their shoes at the lockers, Mana spun around at the feeling of someone watching her. Her instincts had been sharpened enough after all that combat to know she hadn't just imagined the sensation, but even a thorough scan of the people mulling about at the school's entrance didn't lead to any obvious suspects.

"Something wrong?" Sotaro asked, trying to follow her eyes to where she was looking.

She waved a hand. "Nah, it's fine. Heading to class." They gave a short goodbye to one another before heading off in different directions, Mana making it to her class and slumping in her chair. She did little but drum on the desktop with a pair of pencils to a song in her head while watching the rest of the class file in, finally hearing the last bell to signal that class was beginning.

While she still found everything exceedingly tedious, she was at least able to focus more often than not thanks to being well-rested. She was even on the right page for a change when asked to do some English reading, reciting the words as poorly and slowly as possible to discourage being asked to do this again.

The best part of the day – lunch – arrived quickly, almost as if the day itself wanted to be over as soon as possible. Fine by her. The sooner school was over, the sooner she could get to doing something more important.

She felt her shoulder tapped. "Tatsugami-san," that unmistakably chipper voice said, "would you like to eat lunch with me today?" Hoshiko asked this at least once a week, always to a resounding no. Why she was so intent on making Mana her friend was anyone's guess, but it was always more than a bit annoying having to reject her time and time again.

"I guess," she sighed, Hoshiko looking utterly shocked at the answer. Truthfully, Mana felt the same.

After a moment's recovery, her smile returned even brighter than before. "Great!" she said, gesturing for her to follow to the right side of the classroom. Over there she found four desks pushed together, two other girls seated and preparing to eat.

"Everyone!" Hoshiko announced. "Tatsugami-san wants to eat with us today!" One of the two – a larger girl with a brown bob and heavy circles under a pair of green eyes – didn't have much of a response to this news besides a lazy nod and a yawn as she tapped away on her phone and sucked a green crystal pendulum hung from her neck. The other, though – rail thin, dark hair in a ponytail, and glasses that seemed to catch the light in that special way as to conceal her eyes – was a bit more overt in her disapproval, giving a small huff as she spun a single chopstick between her fingers.

"Yo," Mana said, pretending not to notice the glare coming from one of them.

"These two are my dear friends and help me on the student council," Hoshiko said as she made introductions. Gesturing towards the girl with glasses, she continued with, "This is Mori-chan, the vice president." Then towards the other," This is Haruko-chan, our treasurer."

Mana nodded. "Pretty sure everyone knows who I am," she stated. She pulled out a chair and sat down, reaching into her jacket to pull out several loose strips of beef jerky. Running away from an awkward conversation meant she didn't have time to take any of the food in the fridge. She'd already committed to eating with these people, too, so she didn't feel right about running off to go buy something else even when hunger was finally starting to set in.

"Is that all you packed today?" Hoshiko asked her with clear concern.

Halfway through gnawing on one of the strips, Mana nodded. "It's fine."

She shook her head, pulling out her own lunch from her bag and pushing it towards Mana. "Here, share with me."

"It's fine," she repeated through a mouthful of partly-chewed meat, squinting towards the soft pink container. "Just eat your food."

"It's no problem!" she reassured, refusing to give up. "I always pack too much, anyway. There's definitely enough to share. And it would go to waste otherwise since I wouldn't eat it."

Didn't seem like she was going to take no for answer. With a heavy sigh, Mana leaned back in her chair. "You want me to eat so bad? Why not feed me?" Her triumphant smile lasted for barely a second, Hoshiko happy to oblige as she removed the lid from her lunchbox and grasped a meatball between some chopsticks.

"If you insist!" she said cheerily, holding the food up to Mana's face. "As the student council president, it's my job to ensure that everyone enjoys a nutritious lunch."

"It was a joke," she said, trying and failing to back away. This girl was relentless, pursuing her like a wolf on the hunt.

"Was it?" she asked sweetly, head tilted to the side. "Well, either way, I've already got it right here. You might as well eat it."

"I don't want..."

"Honestly, it's good. I made it myself." She moved it closer. "It won't hurt just to try."

She couldn't put up much more of a fight. Running would just show weakness, too. With a small groan, Mana finally gave in and ate the meatball.

"See? There we go." The amount of enjoyment Hoshiko took from this action was at least a little disturbing.

Suddenly, they all heard a quick snap, turning their heads to see that the Mori girl had broken a chopstick in half for whatever reason. "Ms. President, there's something I need to talk with you about," she said in a serious tone.

"Oh, sure," Hoshiko replied. "What did-"

"Privately," she added. After a short moment of hesitation, she was able to lead Hoshiko out of the room, Mana and Haruko now alone by themselves and embroiled in yet more awkward silence. That seemed to be a theme today.

With a deep sigh, Mana tapped the desktop a few times before ripping off another hunk of jerky. She chewed slowly, hoping that maybe Haruko might make the first move. She wouldn't, obviously. It was going to be her responsibility to break all this tension. That or run away.

And while she wasn't opposed to going for a run every now and then, she almost felt bad at the thought of bailing on Hoshiko after how happy she seemed. All this concern for others was really starting to get annoying.

Swallowing, she sighed again. "So..." she began, trying to find something to have a conversation about. "What's going on there?" she asked, gesturing towards Haruko's phone with her jerky.

"Reading," she replied quickly without looking up.

"Like...a book?" It was hard to tell whether it would be worse to continue on like this or to just sit in silence.

"Forum," she said. The tone of her voice didn't give much of a hint as to how she felt about this interaction. She didn't seem frustrated or scared or annoyed with Mana's questions, only very indifferent.

Mana tore off another hunk of jerky, forcing herself to mull over what her next question would be. Asking randomly wasn't getting her anywhere. "What kind of stuff is on that forum?" She just about slapped herself in the face, realizing too late how those specific words could lead to another dead end.

By the grace of whatever god was still looking out for her (Igor?), Haruko didn't answer vaguely this time. "Computers and programming information. Mostly guides. Some opinions."

She nodded, relieved they were finally getting somewhere. "That's cool. Yeah, I know some about that stuff." Shit.

Haruko glanced off her phone's screen. "Like what?"

"You know, the basics." This was another lie. The most sophisticated piece of technology she owned was her phone and she barely even knew how to use some of the more obscure functions on that.

"Did you build your own rig?" she asked.

"I'm working on it," she lied. "Still trying to find the right...processor for what I want to do." That was a computer word, right? She was pretty sure she heard it somewhere once. Maybe on the side of a laptop box.

"Trying a Shwinty 400," she said dryly.

Mana pretend to think, saying, "Yeah, that might work." She paused. "That doesn't exist."

"It does not."

She was caught. "I apologize for lying," she said, utterly defeated. Didn't even know why she did it in the first place. It's not like she was desperate to impress people. She wanted to try being less abrasive, but all she was doing so far was making a giant ass out of herself.

Silence returned for a good minute or so before Mana finally stated the obvious. "They've been gone a while." Haruko grunted in response. It was hard to tell if that was an affirmation of what she'd said or if she was just clearing her throat. "You think it's about me?"

"Probably." They were both thinking the same thing, apparently. "Or volleyball."

"What, they play some?"

"No," she answered. "School team. Trying to organize it better. The school's looking into giving us more funding now for competition."

Mana nodded. "Didn't think we even had teams like that out here."

"Not normally," she said. "Too far to drive, too weak to be competitive. At least until this year."

A new development. "What happened this year?" she asked.

"New first year student," Haruko told her. "No one's ever seen anything like it before. Probably even better than the coach in terms of talent. She joined the team and now the school's decided we have a shot at competing. Pretty wild."

"Well, shit," she replied. "Must be some kid."

"Priestess of volleyball," Haruko said. "That's what they call her. I haven't watched her. Don't really care. It's just more work managing the funding."

The conversation ended after that, Haruko unwilling to say anything beyond that and Mana not really sure what to ask in terms of follow up questions. If nothing else, this was some neat trivia about the school.

Thankfully, she wouldn't be stuck wracking her brain any longer, both Hoshiko and Mori entering the classroom again. It was a bit disturbing to see, Hoshiko's lips pursed into the closest thing to a frown she seemed able to muster and Mori looking to be hanging her head in shame. Must have been some talk.

"Sorry it took so long," Hoshiko said to them, upbeat demeanor returning without a hitch. "Did anything fun happen while we were gone?"

"No," Haruko answered correctly. Mana shrugged in agreement, shoving the remainder of her jerky into her mouth and chomping through it.

"Well, at least we didn't miss anything exciting!" She glanced to her lunch, then to Mana. "Tatsugami-san, aren't you still hungry? Go ahead, eat!"

"Filled up on jerky," she said, holding her hands up. "It's cool." Though Hoshiko still seemed quite skeptical, she thankfully let her be. "Besides, if you're bothering someone about eating, why not her?" She pointed her thumb at Haruko.

"Not hungry," she said, still focused on her phone, Hoshiko nodding in acknowledgment. Not fair.

Mana's phone buzzed a second after that. Pulling it out of her jacket pocket, she read a message asking if she was up for going to the shrine after school. Apparently, Kosaku had already managed to get some supplies put together.

"Talking to someone?" Hoshiko asked.

She nodded, typing an affirmative reply. "Sotaro. Wants to go do something after school."

"That's wonderful!" she said. "You two seem like good friends."

"I guess," she shrugged, remembering back to his disappearance not long ago. "Aren't you? Friends, I mean."

She nodded. "Of course. Like I told you before, we've known each other for a while now."

Mana nodded in turn, raising an eyebrow as she asked, "So, are you good friends or _really_ good friends?"

Hoshiko had to think for a moment before fully understanding the question, at which point she began to giggle. Waving a hand in front of her face, she replied, "No, just good friends. Is it the same for you?"

"Yeah, that's how it is." Probably best to keep it that way. She didn't need to be getting any _really_ good friends in a place she'd leave behind in a year. Especially not after what happened with that kind of thing last time.

"Actually, Mori-san has known him longer than I have. Isn't that right?"

Mori looked up from her food, setting down her one usable chopstick with several pieces of food speared onto it. "Yes, that's true," she replied matter-of-factly. "What about it?"

"Oh, nothing," she replied. "I was just saying. You were how we met, even. Since you were friends with-" She stopped herself, the two looking towards their desks.

"Wait, what happened?" Mana asked, blithely ignoring all indications that she shouldn't push on this particular subject.

Hoshiko forced herself to laugh. "Oh, it's nothing," she told her. "Just an old friend. She's...not really around much these days."

"Who?" Mana continued, unable to see how uncomfortable it was making everyone. Haruko was even looking over her phone with a worried expression now.

"It's..." Hoshiko looked to Mori for support. Sighing, she said, "I think it would be better if you asked Sotaro-kun yourself. But..."

Mori finished for her. "Don't," she said, not bothering to hide her contempt. "It's none of your business." She flinched a bit after catching a disappointed look from Hoshiko.

This was a rather tough predicament to be in. On the one hand, wanting to know whatever dark secret Sotaro had hidden that seemingly everyone else was aware of was more than a bit tantalizing. On the other, it didn't seem like something she should keep going for with how the others were reacting to her questions. On the other third hand, Mori had told her not to do it, something that only made her want to dig deeper out of spite. But on the last vestigial fourth hand, she'd made that resolution before to be nicer which likely meant doing less things out of spite.

She'd have to think this one over and figure out how to proceed later. "Whatever," she said, standing up. "Going to the roof for a smoke."

"Smoking?" Hoshiko said, a bit surprised. "That's against the rules. You can't do that at school."

"Sure, sure," she said. "Smoking more jerky, or something." She headed for the door, putting up a hand and saying, "See you around."

Mana could say she was surprised at how this whole endeavor had quickly spiraled out of control but that would be a lie. As she made her way out onto the roof of the school, she tried to figure out what she'd hoped to accomplish with accepting that lunch invitation. How did she really, honestly expect all of this to play out?

She wasn't the type to make friends. She never had been and most likely never would be. Even those she did consider friends weren't particularly close with her, most of them having abandoned her since the incident that caused her to move out here. The few who hadn't were more and more distant with each passing day.

The more she thought about this, the more ridiculous it all seemed. It's not like she actually had a chance of being friends with the student council president. Even if they had anything in common which it didn't seem that they did, she was chronically rule-breaking and a delinquent. Associating with her would just drag Hoshiko down. This was to say nothing about Mori's seeming disdain for her very existence or Haruko's indifference.

How much longer was she going to be able to keep this up? The more she tried to put herself out there and to not push others away, the more exhausted she felt. She was beginning to question whether any of the fleeting positive feelings she got from all of that were even worth it in comparison. And they were fleeting, especially with the ever-present ticking clock on all of these relationships.

Lighting up, she took a long drag before exhaling a puff of smoke into the clear sky. This at least made her swarm of thoughts come a bit slower, though it did little to stem all of the bad feelings that were creeping their way into her mind. It was disgusting, this feeling of vulnerability.

Before she knew it, she'd already smoked her entire cigarette. Dropping the butt to the ground, she crushed it under her heel before lighting a second. She took her time with this one, looking out at the shabby town through the fencing surrounding the roof as she did. She wasn't thinking of much in particular at the moment; on the contrary, she was trying to think as little as possible, hoping that her mind would just be quiet for a little bit.

Despite the growing cold, she stayed up here for the remainder of lunch, managing to smoke half a pack in that amount of time. She slipped back into class with a few minutes to spare, giving an awkward half-nod to Hoshiko after she smiled at her from her own seat. Even if it didn't make sense, she felt an odd sense of shame, almost seeming like she'd let her down in some way. The worst part was that she'd gotten to a point where she couldn't even parse how much of this came from her bad behavior and what was simply overthinking.

The rest of the day crept along, though Mana didn't really notice it. She felt like she was in a daze for the most part, staring ahead without much on her mind as teachers' words passed through her brain without registering. She'd learned long ago that few would dare to call on her already, even less so if she could at least pretend to look like she was paying attention.

Even with class dismissed, it still took her a few moments to realize she could leave. Class had mostly emptied out by the time she came back to her senses, quietly collecting her things and heading out the door. Despite her dwindling spirit, she still had another social commitment for today. Terrific.

Along her way, she decided to make a stop by the school gym. For whatever reason, the conversation earlier had made her a bit curious about this supposed star player the school had taken in. No sooner had she entered through the heavy metal door did she jump back, the loud crack of leather impacting wooden floorboards with the force of a mortar shell startling her more than almost any Shadow to date.

She didn't have to look hard to find this priestess, pinpointing her as the shortest girl there among the sea of blue and black volleyball uniforms. Even with her lack of skill or investment in the sport, Mana could see immediately just how good this girl was, green eyes burning with the kind of fire she always thought reserved for, like, samurai or commandos. Moreover, she had to be some kind of magic with the way she rocketed around the court, taking on five other people at once as some kind of strange training exercise and still managing to beat all of them without so much as mussing her perfectly styled brown pixie cut.

Mana wasn't in much of a rush, standing off to the side a ways away and observing. Disinterest or not, it was something else to watch her at work. Her tiny frame must hide some kind of otherworldly strength with the way she could sprint from one side of the court to the next to keep the ball in the air. Outside of the split second she took to push up a pair of large yellow glasses on her narrow nose, she wasted no movements when it came to volleyball, whole body reacting at speeds that barely seemed possible even for the pros.

It was over in an instant, the group deciding to take a break or stop altogether after the twelfth score on the part of the priestess. It wasn't entirely clear from where she was lurking. Regardless, it seemed like this girl (who she overheard was named Shizuka) was more than prepared for whatever competition might be coming up. Practice was just a formality at this point.

None of this concerned her, though. In truth, she was just putting off going to the shrine. Knowing Sotaro, he was still waiting outside the school to walk with her. Better not force him to wait any longer.

As she left the gym and headed towards the school entrance, she was forced to acknowledge that today wasn't going to be over for quite a while. Fantastic.

* * *

Oh shit, waddup. It's here again. That took forever.

It's been rough goings for a while. I've had a lot going on and not much in the way of inspiration. The last couple of months have kind of just been me doing whatever I was able to and letting other stuff fall by the wayside. This was one of the casualties unfortunately even though I've had a pretty good idea of what was going to happen since the start.

This should at least teach anyone who was still holding out hope of me being dependable a lesson. I told you not to expect anything from me.

Just like my optimistic ass, Mana's having the realization that it's not so easy to change overnight. She started the day in a pretty good mood but pretty quickly slid back into her old mindset. Caring about people and trying to be nice is hard, especially when everyone and everything seems to be another opportunity to shove your foot in your mouth.

In other news, three new Arcana. Can't afford to waste time with that long hiatus.

That's about all I've got for now. Next update will hopefully take less than five months. Agathion fans can rest easy because it's time for your boy to return from the war.

Thanks for reading. Share if you're enjoying. Always remember to keep jerky on hand for emergencies.


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